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HEBREW 



MEN AND TIMES, 



FROM 



THE PATEIAECHS TO TIE MESSIAH. 



ay 



JOSEPH HENRY ALLEN, 



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PREFACE 



About ten years ago, in undertaking a course of lec- 
tures on portions of the Jewish and Christian annals, I felt 
very much the want of some such guide as I have tried to 
furnish here. The singular interest of the Hebrew history, 
— its epical unity and completeness, — its place and con- 
nection among other memorials of the ancient world, — the 
unique literature which contains it, and the peculiarly 
sacred relation it bears to the religious life and faith of men, 
— these, of course, have not escaped the attention of scholars. 
And the body of literature that has gathered about this 
topic is perhaps equal in richness and breadth to that in any 
other field. But there seemed room and need of a clear, 
brief sketch, or outline ; — one that should spare the details 
and give the results of scholarship ; that should trace the 
historical sequences and connections, without being entan- 
gled in questions of mere erudition, or literary discussions, 
or theological polemics ; that should preserve the honest in- 
dependence of scholarly thought, along with the temper of 



VI PREFACE. 

Christian faith ; that should not lose from sight the broad 
perspective of secular history, while it should recognize at 
each step the hand of " Providence as manifest in Israel." 

Such have been the aim and purpose of this volume. I 
wish that it may be taken for no more than what it claims. 
It is a Sketch, not a History. It does not supersede, it 
assumes, knowledge of the Scripture narrative. To be 
rightly judged, its rapid outline should be followed Bible 
in hand. I disclaim once for all the pretension, as I have 
not had the means, of original research. Other cares and 
occupations have forbidden me the attempt to master the 
vast learning of the subject. Of scholars by profession I 
can only crave indulgence. To those who are not I may 
say that I have used the best guides within my reach, and 
have spared no pains to trace with all possible fidelity the 
real character of each epoch, or train of events, or literary 
monument that records it. 

It should in justice be said at the outset, that the concep- 
tion of this task, or a single step in its execution, would have 
been quite impossible without the masterly and admirable 
work of Ewald,* to which I wish to express my constant 
indebtedness, — throughout the earlier portion especially, 
where the general tone is his, and where, in many matters 
of detail, his opinion is silently assumed. At the same time, 
there are cardinal points of history and criticism where I 
have found myself unable to follow him, and where, with all 

* Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 



PREFACE. Vll 

deference and reluctantly, a different view has been adopted. 
I desire, also, here to express my obligations to the very 
fine ability and scholarship of Mr. Newman's " Hebrew 
Monarchy," and to the portions which I have been able to 
consult of Bunsen's unfinished " Bibelwerk." Such acknowl- 
edgment as seems due to other authorities will be found in 
the course of the volume. But in all cases requiring the 
exercise of independent judgment, the statements and the 
opinions are my own. 

Some portions under the titles " The Law " and " The 
Messiah " are probably most open to the charge of novelty 
or mistake. As to these, — involving as they do the rudi- 
ments, or immediate antecedents, of the Hebrew and Chris- 
tian faith, — I can only say that they have cost the most 
anxious care of all in preparation, and that no assertion has 
been ventured without being duly weighed. And, while 
there is much to protest against in the spirit, method, and 
results of such writers as Ghillany and Gfrorer, whom I 
have freely consulted on these portions, it seems to me that 
it is right to use such of their investigations as we hon- 
estly can, where they may help us to simple truth of fact. 

To the affluent learning, and the constant, most generous 
kindness of the late Theodore Parker, and to the personal 
encouragement or counsel received from others, — among 
whom I am proud to reckon so illustrious a theologian and 
critic as Mr. Martineau, and the historian Ewald, — I would 
express my grateful sense of obligation. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

I am well aware of the risk I run in attempting metrical 
versions of a few of the earlier and more striking specimens 
of the Hebrew national poetry. But it is the only way I 
know of exhibiting one very essential feature of the genius 
of that people, without marring, by literary discussions, the 
work in hand. And, with deference to the opinion of 
critics, I venture to think that the formality of Hebrew 
" parallelism " is best represented to our minds by the for- 
mality of English rhyme and rhythm. In these versions I 
have retained where I could the phrases of the common 
English Bible ; and, where I have varied from its sense, it 
has generally been for more accurate rendering of the 
original. 

I have conscientiously sought to avoid entangling this 
little work with any sort of dogmatism, literary or theologi- 
cal, and to keep it true to its strictly historical intention. 
Not that I can claim to have succeeded perfectly. Indeed, 
where materials at first hand are so fragmentary and few, 
no reconstruction can possibly be had without the open or 
tacit assumption of some guiding idea. But, whatever per- 
sonal prepossession may have been betrayed, or judgment of 
matters in controversy, I trust it has been kept so far in 
reserve as not to interfere seriously with the main purpose 
of the book, or to impair such value as it may have to 
readers of whatever creed. 

I would submit, further, that in the way above hinted we 
may best approach the true and unexhausted sense of an 



PREFACE. IX 

historic Revelation. The divine or supernatural element is 
shown under terrestrial limitations and conditions. Events 
must be seen on their human side to enable us to judge 
truly of their Divine side. The philosophy of History, 
rightly apprehended, plays into the hands of the philosophy 
of Faith. The results of a genuine scientific criticism will 
be taken up and appropriated by that higher criticism 
which deals with the interior principles of a nation's life 
and the grand laws of historical evolution ; which traces 
events from their " first great Cause, least understood," — 
the fountain-head of special revelations, and the governing 
Force in human affairs. 

Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 
January, 1861. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

1. The Patriarchs 1 

II. Moses 36 

III. The Judges 73 

IY. David ....... 113 

V. Solomon 145 

VI. The Kings 171 

VII. The Law 208 

VIII. The Prophets 252 

IX. The Captivity 281 

X. The Maccabees 311 

XI. The Alexandrians ..... 346 

XII. The Messiah 379 



Chronological Outline of the Later Monarchy 427 
Index ......... 431 



HEBREW MEN AND TIMES. 



I. THE PATBIAECHS. 



THE little country of Palestine is a slender strip 
of rugged land, lying between the desert and the 
sea, divided about midway from north to south by 
the river Jordan, and making the natural highway 
between Asia and Africa. Its dimensions are about 
those of Vermont, or Belgium. It was once very 
populous and fertile. In the fond language of He- 
brew Scripture, it was " a land flowing with milk 
and honey ; a land of hills and valleys, drinking 
water of the rain of heaven : the glory of all lands." 
Now, it is mostly sterile and desolate. Its forests 
are hewn down, its soil washed by the torrents of a 
thousand winters, its river-courses dried, its cities 
ravaged by centuries of war, its prosperity blasted by 
centuries of misrule. Bare limestone hills, glens 
infested by robbers, scattered ruins of towns and 
villages, regions of lovely but forsaken landscape, 
richly fertile but half-cultivated fields, doubtful rel- 
iques and vestiges of its ancient history intermixed 
with monuments of the Crusader and the half-civil- 



2 THE PATRIARCHS. 

ization of the Turk; — these make the traveller's 
report of what was fairest in the splendid realm of 
Solomon, and the scenes of the ministry of Christ. 

But the character of the Hebrew race has given 
an interest to this country shared by none other 
under heaven. To all the civilized nations of the 
earth it is known familiarly as the Holy Land. Its 
very local names are the dearest symbols, to multi- 
tudes, of sentiments, memories, and hopes that have 
become part of their religious nature. Hebron and 
Bethlehem, Bethel, Sharon, and Carmel, Mount Zion, 
the Sea of Galilee, and the river Jordan, are the 
household words of Christian imagery ; and " when 
David had taken the strong rock-fort of Jebus, he 
made of it a city so holy, as that its very name should 
be music for ever." 

Palestine is in the main a high and hilly region ; 
although its old name, Chna, or Canaan, is held to 
signify "the low," — i. e. in comparison with the 
heights of Syria or Lebanon.* From the " hill- 
country of Judaea," it slopes gradually towards 
Syria at the north, where it is flanked by the great 
mountain-range of Lebanon ; and at the east breaks 
suddenly down to the thrice-terraced valley, where 
the Jordan has graven its rocky gorge, and the deep 
gulf where the Dead Sea lies, thirteen hundred feet 
below the Mediterranean level. It is a land full of 
rugged valleys, glens, and caves, which mark the 
localities of sacred legend. The scenes of Mary's 
birth, of Gabriel's annunciation, of Christ's nativity, 
of his transfiguration, and agony in the garden, are all 

* Movers. 



SCENERY OF PALESTINE. 3 

shown as so many grottos. The dead were interred 
in caves. Sarah's tomb at Mamre, and that of Laz- 
arus at Bethany, were hollowed in the rock. A 
limestone country (as the valley of Virginia) is 
sometimes grooved and channelled by numberless 
watercourses under ground, making grotesque and 
enormous caverns ; and the natural caves of Ca- 
naan, for generations the haunt of half-extermi- 
nated tribes, sheltered the prophets of Israel from 
the violence of King Ahab, and David from the 
angry jealousy of Saul. The " mountains round 
about Jerusalem" were from of old the striking 
symbol of Divine protection ; their deep glens are 
Tophet, the valley of Jehoshaphat, and the bed of 
the brook Kedron. Lebanon in the north, and the 
mountains of Moab and Edom in the east and south, 
not only are great natural landmarks, or barriers, 
but, with their majestic scenery and wild or pastoral 
traditions, they both make the imagery of Hebrew 
psalm, and fill out the visions of Christian fancy. 

Then there were other features, of landscape or 
climate, that perpetually stimulated and deepened 
the religious dread which seems native to the He- 
brew mind. The dreary desert-boundary is a more 
solemn barrier than the changing sea or the ever- 
lasting hills. The earthquake-wave that ran between 
the Caucasus and Sicily was often felt in Palestine.* 
Swarms of locusts, sudden and terrible, came like 
judgments of an angry God : " fire devouring before 
them, and flame blasting behind ; the land as the 
garden of Eden before them, and behind them a 

* Ewald, Vol. I. p. 264. 



4 THE PATRIAECHS. 

desolate wilderness." * Malignant local maladies, 
pestilence, and the scalding leprosy of the East, vis- 
ited and scourged the people, subduing them to the 
prophet's vehement appeal, or the burdensome requi- 
sition of the priest. And more than all, local mem- 
ories and old tradition spoke of stupendous judgments 
exercised on a lewd and godless people ; — how the 
cities of the hot and fertile plain, which was " as the 
garden of the Lord, or like the land of Egypt," for 
beauty and richness, were destroyed suddenly by fire 
from heaven, its mines of bitumen (or " slime-pits ") 
being kindled underneath ; and the bitter water of 
the salt lake flowed over them, wherein no living 
thing could dwell, and where, as Josephus tells, 
the relics of those old haunts of profligate luxury 
might still be seen, by whoever should venture on 
that dreadful sea. 

" That this was a volcanic region," says Strabo, 
" is shown by many proofs. For they exhibit rocks 
near Moasas, rugged and scorched, and clefts in 
many places, and a soil like ashes ; and drops of 
pitch trickling from smooth rocks, and boiling 
streams of vile stench, and dwellings here and 
there thrown down : so that one would credit the 
tale of the natives, that thirteen cities were once 
inhabited there, Sodbm, their metropolis, having a 
circuit of sixty furlongs ; but by means of earth- 
quakes and spoutings forth of flame, and hot springs 
of pitchy and sulphurous water, the lake fell on 
them, and their very stones took fire ; and of the 
cities some were sunk, and from others those who 

* Joel ii. 3. 



EARLY INHABITANTS. 5 

were able fled away. But Eratosthenes says, on the 
contrary, that, being a lake-country, most of it was 
ingulfed in the bursting out of water like the sea. 
Furthermore, in the country of the Gadarenes is a 
noisome marsh, of which the cattle that drink the 
water cast their hair and hoofs and horns." * 

The Hebrew traditions preserve to us many traces 
of the aboriginal inhabitants of this land, — relics 
of buried nations, whose thin ghosts flit across the 
dimly-lighted stage of the early history. First were 
Horites, the savage tribe indigenous to the soil. Their 
name signifies mountaineers, or dwellers in caves; 
for when they had been driven back by the Canaan- 
ites, scanty remnants still hung about the caverns 
and the hills, or inhabited the thousand rocky nests 
of the Edomite Mount Seir ; f and of these wretched 
outlaws the book of Job may be thought to speak : 
" They were driven forth from among men, who cried 
after them as after a thief, to dwell in the cliffs of the 
valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks ; . . . . 
wet with the showers of the mountains, and embra- 
cing the rock for want of shelter." J There were 
Replied™, or Giants, fabled by some to be the progeny 
of a breed so vast that they had outlived the flood, 
who gave their name to- the valley lying westward 
from Jerusalem. There were Kadmonites, " Sons of 
the East ; " and Philistines, a relic of the old shep- 
herd race, who had wandered back from Caphtor, or 
Crete ; and Anakim, or sons of Anak, said to have 
roved from Babel, — the terror of the southern 

* Lib. XVI. cap. 2. t Ewald. Compare Gen. xxxvi. 20. 

% Job xxx. 5, 6 ; xxiv. 8. 



6 THE PATRIARCHS. 

border, till slowly driven towards the sea, and finally 
subdued along with the kindred tribes that gave 
them shelter. And towards the stony peninsula of 
Sinai roamed the wild desert tribe of Amalek ( said 
in the Arab traditions to have spread northward from 
Yemen into Syria, where they became a great nation, 
under mighty kings), who prowled, like the modern 
Bedouins, upon the southern border of the Promised 
Land, and long and fiercely disputed its possession 
with the sons of Israel. 

When Abraham, the great forefather of the He- 
brew race, came hither in his wandering from the 
country of the Chaldees, " the Canaanite was already 
in the land." Their immemorial conquest had de- 
cided the name and mastership of Canaan. Their 
original home, said their tradition, was by the coasts 
of the Arabian sea,* whence they spread steadily 
northward and westward towards the Mediterranean. 
In blood as well as language, in traditional usages 
and religious rites, they were probably of near kin- 
dred with the tribes of Israel, and after the conquest 
under Joshua they merged their broken fortunes 
with those of the stronger race ; yet a deep-rooted 
religious antipathy assigned to them the inexpiable 
curse pronounced by Noah on his youngest son, and 
the real connection of the two remains in impenetra- 
ble obscurity. 

Before the Hebrew invasion, the Canaanites consti- 
tuted several well-marked petty nationalities. The 
Amorites, or Highlanders, occupied the almost im- 
pregnable hills of the south, and (by recent con- 

* Herodotus, VII. 89. 



CANAANITES. 7 

quest) the outlying regions beyond Jordan. Here 
they fought the Hebrews obstinately, under Sihon, 
king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, and some 
of their strongholds were scarce subdued for five 
centuries. There was peace with them once, under 
Samuel ; and the tribe became tributary to Solomon, 
among those " whom the children of Israel were not 
able utterly to destroy." * The Hittites^ or Low- 
landers, were a milder tribe, that dwelt in valleys, 
and were generally disposed to peace. While Mamre 
the Amorite was Abraham's ally in war, to rescue 
Lot and the king of Sodom, it was from Ephron, of 
the sons of Heth, that by friendly purchase he had 
the cave of Machpelah for Sarah's burying-place. 
Esau's two Canaanitish wives were taken from this 
tribe, and Uriah the Hittite, the ill-fated husband of 
Bathsheba, was a brave and faithful officer of David. 
The Perizzites " dwelt by the sea and by the coast 
of Jordan," the Hivites (it is conjectured) in the 
inland towns ; and sundry local clans are mentioned, 
as Jebusite, Girgashite, Arkite, of whose name no 
account can be given. The natural classing of a 
rough country, at once seaboard and rural, such as 
we find it long after in Attica, is thus anticipated in 
the primeval history of Canaan. 

This early race of conquerors had grown into a 
numerous and comparatively civilized population. J 

* 1 Samuel vii. 14 ; 1 Kings ix. 21. 

t Hittite (Khatti) is the name for Syrian in the Ninevite inscriptions. 
(Layard.) 

% The names Kirjath-sepher and Kirjath-sannah (City of the Book, 
and of the Law) are held to be an indication of ancient Canaanite 
culture, and even of written codes. 



8 THE PATRIARCHS. 

Though they had a strong military equipment, and 
long held the Israelites at bay with their iron char- 
iots and disciplined skill, yet in the main they pre- 
ferred the security of peace to the hazards of war. 
As at Laish, " they dwelt careless, after the manner 
of the Sidonians, quiet and secure."* Their vices, 
their superstitions, their cruel human sacrifices, were 
those of depraved and luxurious, not of barbaric 
life. The five " cities of the plain " were infamous 
for luxury and lack of vigour. They had been four- 
teen years tributary to the leagued kings of Syria 
when they revolted, and their defeat brought Abra- 
ham and his clansmen to the rescue. f When the 
remnants of this once powerful population were 
driven back upon the northern portion of the coast, 
their ancient civilization struck deeper root in the 
enterprising and seafaring life they were compelled 
to follow. Sldon, in the antique genealogy, is the 
eldest son of Canaan. J Phoenicia became the mother 
of rich colonies ; the source of arts, commerce, and 
letters to the Greeks ; the head-quarters of naval 
enterprise, that discovered the silver-mines of Spain 
and the tin of Cornwall, and circumnavigated Africa 
about the time of Solon ; § and when Solomon built 
the temple at Jerusalem, he must go to Hiram, king 
of Tyre, and employ the resources of that very cul- 
ture whose early corrupted germ had been violently 
transplanted from Judaea and Jericho and the valley 
of the Jordan. 

* Judges xviii. 7. t Genesis, ch. xiv. 

X Genesis x. 15. § Herodotus, IV. 42. 



FAMILY OF SHEM. 9 

The Hebrews, by their own tradition, had their 
name from Eber, the sixth in the ascending line 
before Abraham ; but more probably from the name 
" emigrant," by which he was first known in Canaan. 
The great progenitor, or eponyme, of the Shemitic 
stock, including the Chaldee, Arab, and Phoenician, 
is Shem, father of the " holy races," and eldest son 
of Noah. The name signifies "Lofty;"* as if, from 
its highland home in the mountains of Armenia, this 
eldest family looked down upon the sons of Japhet 
to the north, and of Ham to the south. God should 
" dwell in the tents of Shem," was the traditionary 
blessing pronounced by Noah, the second great an- 
cestor of mankind. From Shem, say the Mohamr 
medans, are descended all the holy men and seers : 
the sons of Japhet are white, but none among them 
have had the dignity of prophet ; while the curse of 
Ham, for his insolent demeanour towards his father, 
has stricken his descendants black. f Thus antipa- 
thies of race find their explanation and excuse in 
holy legend. 

The mountainous and temperate region of Ar- 
menia seems to have been the cradle of this race. 
Their traditions make the Garden of Eden, the first 
earthly Paradise, embrace its two great rivers, the 
Tigris and Euphrates ; to which their loose geogra- 
phy appended the Indus (or Ganges) and the Nile, 
as the circle of tradition and migration widened 
out.J When the whole earth had been flooded, and 

* Or, perhaps, the Sun. J Josephus, Antiquities, I. 1. 4. 

t Weil, Biblical Legends. See also 2 Esdras vi. 56, and Amos 
vii. 17. 

1* 



10 THE PATKIARCHS. 

the human race extirpated, all but the family of one 
just man, at the end of the year of desolation the 
ark rested on its sacred mountain, Ararat. To this 
day Ararat is the centre and religious home of the 
people of Armenia ; and still, upon its summit, the 
holy ark is guarded invisibly, say the inhabitants, in 
a spot which no mortal is suffered to approach. It 
was among the children of Japhet that " the isles of 
the Gentiles were divided in their lands, every one 
after his tongue, after their families, in their na- 
tions ; " * that is to say, the several countries of 
Europe. It was from the lawless posterity of Ham 
that Nimrod went forth, " a mighty hunter before 
the Lord," — a violent man and fierce, introduced 
in the Mohammedan legends as the obstinate perse- 
cutor of the true faith in Abraham, until the Lord 
destroyed him by an assault of flies ; and from the 
same cursed brood the builders of Babylon arose, 
who insolently strove to overtop the Lord's heaven 
and defy a second flood, until they were smitten with 
confusion of tongues, and " scattered abroad from 
thence upon the face of all the earth ; and they left 
off to build the city." f It is with the family of 
Shem alone that the sacred history has to do. 

The genealogy of Shem is a series of geographical 
names, noting how that family spread itself to the 
west and south, till it occupied the belt of land be- 
tween Asia Minor and the highlands of Cabul.J These 
antique genealogies are cast in round or sacred num- 

* Genesis x. 5. t Genesis xi. 8. 

$ His five sons are Elam (Persia), Asshur (Assyria), Arphaxad (Ar- 
menia), Lud (Lydia), and Aram (Syria). Genesis x. 22. 



HEBKEW MIGEATION. 11 

bers, to aid the memory, after the fashion of the 
time when there was no written monument. From 
Adam to Noah are ten generations, and from Shem to 
Abraham ten, — a slender thread of historic recollec- 
tion serving to connect the great epochs of the Cre- 
ation, the Deluge, and the Hebrew Migration; while 
the same tradition, magnifying the distant past, seems 
to have assigned two hundred and fifty years as the 
limit of man's life in the later period, five hundred 
before the dispersion of the tribes, and a thousand 
years for those primeval generations before the flood. 
Doubtless these barren lists of names were in that 
ancient day bead-rolls of sacred legends, or muster- 
rolls of illustrious traditions, of which only wrecks and 
fragments have come down to us. 

The ten generations including Abraham mark the 
steps of the migration that led the Hebrews to the bor- 
ders of the u pleasant land," — a migration of some 
five hundred miles, and including not a single house- 
hold only, but a people, or at least a clan. Syrian 
tradition makes Abraham the founder, at any rate 
the king, of Damascus, — that most ancient of cities, 
which the Orientals call " a pearl set in the midst 
of emeralds." The great Hebrew migration, tend- 
ing southwestwardly from Armenia towards Egypt, 
paused at that rich and beautiful oasis, that broad 
garden and forest tract which embosoms " the great 
and sacred Damascus, surpassing every city," said Ju- 
lian, twenty-five centuries later, " in the beauty of its 
temples, the magnitude of its shrines, the timeliness 
of its seasons, the limpidness of its fountains, the vol- 
ume of its waters, and the richness of its soil." Its 



12 THE PATRIARCHS. 

situation in the great plain on the eastern slope of 
Lebanon, with its dense and picturesque garden or- 
chards of all variety of fruit, its clear and generous 
streams, and its horizon of distant mountains, is still 
the delight of travellers ; and among the memorials 
of its dateless antiquity, along with the scene of Paul's 
conversion, and the Syrian Naaman's Abana and 
Pharpar, is the residence of the patriarch Abraham. 
The name of his servant, " Eliezer of Damascus," is 
a token of his sojourn there ; as if, in default of a 
lawful heir, this ancient city, his former realm, should 
have inherited his wealth of herds, silver, and gold. 

According to the tradition of the Arabs, Abraham, 
when an infant, had to be hidden (as Moses was) from 
the suspicious rage of the tyrant Nimrod, and dwelt 
for many months in a dark cave. When he first came 
forth, and was journeying towards Damascus, he saw 
the glittering firmament at night, and said to the 
brightest star (Gad, or Jupiter), " Thou art the Di- 
vinity that hast sheltered and watched me in this 
cave, and thee will I adore." But presently the moon 
arose, and the star grew pale before the splendour of 
her beams ; and Abraham said, " Thou, and not the 
star, art my god." Then the glory of the sun came 
forth in the east, and all the living tribes awoke to 
hail the sovereign light that ruled the day ; and Abra- 
ham fell on his face and worshipped, and said, "Thou 
art mightier than all, for before thee the moon and 
stars hide themselves and flee away; thou art my king 
and my god." But the day passed by, and the sun 
went down as if weary in his course ; and when he 
was alone, in darkness and silence, Abraham knew 



ABRAHAM IN CANAAN. 13 

that the Unseen One who had created them was 
mightier than all, and that He alone was to be 
adored. 

Then when Abraham was seventy-five years old, 
" Jehovah said to him, Get thee out of thy country, 
and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, 
into a land that I will show thee : and I will make 
of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and 
make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing : 
and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him 
that curseth thee ; and in thee shall all families of 

the earth be blessed And Abram took Sarai 

his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their sub- 
stance that they had gathered, and the souls that 
they had gotten in Haran ; and they went forth to 
go into the land of Canaan ; and into the land of 
Canaan they came." * 

This pious family legend is all the account we 
have of that great migration. At Sichem, or She- 
chem, in the heart of the land, and again at Beth-El 
(known long after by its old Canaanite name of Luz, 
or Almond-tree), and again on the high and rich 
plain of " Mamre, which is Hebron," he pitched his 
tent and built his altar, " still journeying towards 
the south." Monuments of stone, landmarks or 
altars, and ancient trees, served, long generations 
after, to mark the various resting-places of that mi- 
gration, the localities of the patriarchal abode. Abra- 
ham's grove and altar near the well of Sheba, the 
" mourning-oak " where Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, 
was buried, the almond-tree and pile of stones at 

* Genesis, chap. xii. 



14 THE PATRIARCHS. 

Bethel, the heap of salt which was shown for many 
ages as the form of Lot's perished wife, were similar 
monuments, serving to enliven and perpetuate the 
old household memories, and commemorate that an- 
cient protest against idolatry. 

For in Palestine, as in the region of the Euphra- 
tes, was the universal sun or star worship of the East. 
Baal or Bel, the sun-god, whose vast temple, with 
brazen gates, was the glory of Babylon the great, 
was the chief deity also of the Canaanites, who 
adored him with licentious and cruel rites ; and 
the subordinate divinities were the glittering hosts 
of heaven. " Here, upon the plain of Mamre, noth- 
ing was more natural than such worship to men who, 
living in tents, with the brilliant sky of the East over- 
head, saw sun and moon daily rise behind the moun- 
tains of Moab, and go down towards the sea, to let 
the dews descend and freshen the grass of the pas- 
tures. Here it was that these sun-worshippers found 
among them the tents of a mighty prince, who did 
not worship sun or star. Here it was that Abraham 
fed his flocks, both before and after his visit to Egypt. 
Here, as he sat under the terebinth-tree in the plain, 
he could tell neighbour and guest of those wonderful 
works of Egyptian art, and astonish the shepherds 
of Mamre with descriptions of the marvels and hints 
of the mysteries of the pyramids ; and with an ac- 
count of the honours with which he had been treated 
at Memphis. Here it was that Sarah died ; and 
within view of where we now stood was the field 
leading up to a hill wherein was a cave in which 
Abraham wished to bury his dead. There was the 



HEBRON. 



15 



hill before us, with the cave in the midst of it, where 
the patriarch himself was afterwards laid."* 

Thus the beautiful hill-country, some twenty miles 
south of Jerusalem, became the first home of the 
Hebrew race in the Holy Land, — a region so fertile 
and populous once that its nestling villages of stone 
lay in sight of one another for a whole day's journey, 
and its very local names tell of plenty. f Hebron 
was their earliest sacred city, and is a town of some 
importance now ; — perhaps the oldest in the world, 
for it was built, said the tradition, " seven years be- 
fore Zoan in Egypt," $ one of the oldest capitals of 
the Delta. It was for seven years the seat of Da- 
vid's royal power : and to this day are shown, in the 
ancient burial-place, the sepulchres of the three great 
ancestors of the race, with their wives ; upon the 
first the pious inscription, " This is the sepulchre of 
our father Abraham, upon whom be peace ; " and so 
upon that of Isaac and the rest. 

To this hilly southern region belong the earlier 
incidents of the patriarchal history. Here the peace- 
able separation took place between Abraham and his 
nephew, when Lot chose his portion with the luxu- 
rious cities of the plain, depriving his descendants 
(Moab and Ammon) of any hereditary claim to the 
region that survived their overthrow, and leaving to 

* H. Martineau, " Eastern Travel" 

t Thus, Beth-lehem, the place of bread ; Beth-page, of figs ; Beth- 
any, of dates ; and Luz, the Almond-tree ; — all clustered near the 
Mount of Olives. 

J Numbers xiii. 22. According to Bunsen, probably built by the 
Palestinian shepherds (Hycsos), about 2255 B. C. (Bibelwerk, Vol. 
V. p. 111.) 



16 THE PATEIARCHS. 

Abraham the highlands and the shore. Here is the 
scene of his frequent and friendly intercourse with 
his guardian Deity : and he had visions of a realm 
so broad, that it should reach " from the river of 
Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." 
Later Scripture speaks of him as " a pilgrim and a 
sojourner," having only the promise of the land for 
his posterity, after their sorrowful exile of four hun- 
dred years in a land that was not their own. But 
in patriarchal story he challenges respect, as the 
powerful leader of a formidable force ; and his place 
is high among the chiefs of Canaan. " Thou art a 
mighty prince among us," said the sons of Heth, 
when he negotiated w r ith them for a burial-place. 
" He is a prophet," said Jehovah in a dream to 
Abimelech, " and shall pray for thee, and thou shalt 
live." Jewish fancy long after ascribed to him pro- 
found knowledge of chemistry, astronomy, and divi- 
nation, the instructing of the Egyptians in mathemat- 
ical science, and the invention of written language ; 
and there have not been wanting those who have 
even identified his name with Brahma, the Hindu 
incarnation of the Infinite. 

Nor is the fame of the mother's beauty inferior to 
that of the father's dignity. Sarah, " the princess," 
was of such exceeding loveliness that her honour 
could be defended only by a miracle. The father of 
the faithful himself, as two different narrations tell,* 
deceived the king whose hospitality he shared, by 
declaring her to be his sister, in fear of dying for her 
sake. The Arabs say that she was made in the per- 

* Genesis, chaps, xii. and xx. 



MELCHIZEDEK. 17 

feet likeness of Eve, to whom God had given two 
thirds of all beauty ; while from the remainder a 
third part was reserved for the patriarch Joseph 
alone. It is added, that she was taken into Egypt 
in a chest, like precious merchandise, to be hid from 
the eye of spoilers ; and when this was opened by the 
king's order, the whole land was brightened with her 
effulgence. 

From his journey to Egypt Abraham returned, by 
the king's favour, " very rich in cattle, in silver, and 
in gold." When the five kings of the plain were 
beaten by the banded Syrian chieftains, and Lot was 
carried off captive with them, he armed more than 
three hundred of his own clan, (represented after- 
wards as " captains each of a countless force," *) and 
brought back both prisoners and spoil. As he passed 
near the Jordan on his return, Melchizedek, " king 
of Salem " and " priest of the Most High God," 
(whom Jewish fancy fondly holds to have been Shem 
himself,) brought forth bread and wine, and blessed 
him in the name of the mighty El, " possessor of 
heaven and earth." f As conqueror and deliverer, 
his title is thus sanctioned by the most venerable 
religion of the soil. 

It is in his tent at Hebron that he receives, with 
Oriental hospitality, the mysterious messengers who 
pass on with their message of doom to the insolent 
inhabitants of Sodom ; and entreats Jehovah face to 
face in their behalf, and wins from him the promise 
that they shall be spared if only ten righteous men 
are found within the place. Thus in the boldest 

* Josephus, Wars, V. 9. 4. t Genesis, chap. xiv. 

B 



18 THE PATRIARCHS. 

strain of legendary narrative ever framed are com- 
bined the pathos of a drama and the piety of antique 
faith. The vividest possible picture is presented, both 
of Abraham's own free access to the Deity, and of the 
awful and unredeemed depravity of the Canaanitish 
race. The dread Power of the earthquake-convulsion 
and the volcanic fire is a person in the dialogue, and 
yields, step by step, to the powerful intercession of 
the holy man. The inexorably Just pauses in the 
execution of his decree ; and, for Abraham's sake, 
will relent on the easiest terms of mercy, — sparing 
from destruction all that share his blood. The pa- 
triarch intercedes for a people that must finally be 
swept away before his descendants, and thus lays by 
for them, as it were, a claim on the gratitude of those 
tribes, requited only by their obstinate hate ; while, 
on the other hand, the race doomed to perish is shown 
to be so desperately and unredeemably abandoned, 
that the " ten righteous" are nowhere to be found. 
The work of vengeance could no longer be delayed. 
The volcanic fire burst forth. The earthquake swal- 
lowed the cities of the polluted plain, and the bitter 
waters flowed over them. " And Abraham gat up 
early .in the morning, to the place where, he had 
stood before Jehovah's face ; and he looked towards 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and beheld, and lo ! the smoke 
of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." 
Lot, by the lead of the two messengers, had fled 
" out of the midst of the overthrow," and dwelt with 
his daughters still in the country towards the east ; 
where he became the father of Moab and Ammon, 
the two great tribes of the hill-country southward 



ISHMAEL. 19 

from Damascus. The animosity cherished towards 
them in after years by the tribes of Israel has its jus- 
tifying pretext in the hateful legend of their birth. 

Abraham, meanwhile, had removed from the near 
vicinity of so frightful a catastrophe, and lived farther 
to the southwest, near Beer-sheba, — the well con- 
secrated by his league with Abimelech, the local chief. 
Here Ishmael, born of the Egyptian Hagar, was ex- 
pelled with his mother from Abraham's tent. By 
the beautiful tradition prevailing through the East, 
the young boy's life was saved by an angel discover- 
ing to Hagar a spring of water when he was just per- 
ishing with thirst. The Arabs call the name of that 
fountain Zemzem, from the bubbling of its waters, 
and say it is in Mecca, their holy city ; but the He- 
brews call it Beer-lahai-roi, that is, the " Well of the 
Vision of Life." So Ishmael became a dweller in 
the desert, with an Egyptian princess for his bride ; 
and was the father of those wild tribes whose hand 
has been against every man, and every man's hand 
against them, until this day. 

Still later, after Sarah's death, from another bond- 
woman, Keturah, were born the fathers of Midian 
and other tribes, that bordered on and harassed 
Israel. And thus, in purer or baser degrees of 
blood, all the outlying populations are traced to 
the great Hebrew stock, by common descent from 
Abraham. 

In this later residence nearer the great sea, Isaac, 
" child of the promise," is born, when Abraham is 
already a hundred years old. And here too is the 
locality of the touching narrative, which tells how 



20 THE PATRIARCHS. 

the last and highest revelation came to him, deliver- 
ing him from the dismal superstition of human sacri- 
fice. This, like the other illustrative legends, is 
told in a dramatic form, the persons being still the 
Patriarch and the Divinity. The sacrifice commanded 
should take place upon Moriah ; but a victim is sud- 
denly provided which it would be innocent to slay. 
The narrative is a favorite one with the family of 
Shem. The Arabs repeat and enlarge it ; telling 
it of Ishmael instead of Isaac, and adding, that an 
invisible band of brass guarded the child's throat 
when the father thrice attempted to cut it with 
a knife. The New Testament writers quote it, 
moreover, as the glorious example of obedience. 
Doubtless it was urged, if not cast in its present 
form, by the prophets when they strove to wean the 
people from the rites of Canaanite idolatry. The 
lesson they would enforce is this, — that the holy 
family was even thus early emancipated from that 
darkest and bloodiest superstition of the tribes among 
whom they dwelt ; and the event of such deliver- 
ance they recount in this pathetic tradition of a 
sacrifice commanded, and fulfilled in a gentler form, 
upon the very spot where their glorious temple and 
altar should long after stand. 

It is the antique type of pastoral life, as conceived 
in the popular imagination, or made familiar by many 
generations of household tradition, that we find re- 
flected in this narrative of the patriarchal times. 
The history of a people is cast in the form of do- 
mestic traditions respecting a single family group. 
Abraham is the mighty and venerable father, feared 



ISAAC. 21 

and honoured by the inhabitants of the land to which 
he migrates. His character is holy and austere ; his 
intercourse direct with God. The type given in our 
simpler history is exaggerated by after reverence ; 
and the halo with which religious fancy invests this 
venerable name is reflected upon the shadows of the 
invisible world. A region of Paradise was called 
" Abraham's bosom," whither the faithful were 
borne by angels to repose in bliss. Still another 
Jewish legend is, that, when the Lord said to Mes- 
siah, "Sit thou on my right hand," Abraham was 
grieved, and said, " My son's son sits on thy right 
hand, and I on thy left hand." But the Lord re- 
plied, " Thy son's son sits indeed on my right hand, 
and I on thy right hand : " so Abraham was com- 
forted.* In his life, too, we have another series of 
round or sacred numbers. His age was a hundred 
years when Isaac was born to him ; and seventy-five 
years later he died, having dwelt just a century in 
the Holy Land. 

" If few could aspire to be like Abraham, it were 
to be wished that all might be as Isaac." He was 
the promised and gentle child, who went willingly as 
a lamb to the sacrifice. He was the peaceable and 
prosperous man, who " sowed in the land, and re- 
ceived in the same year an hundred-fold." The joy 
at his birth is signified in the perpetual play upon his 
name, which means " laughter." f His life is made, 
as it were, only a paler reflection of his father's. He 
sets out to go (like him) into Egypt, to avoid a fam- 

* Bertholdt, " De Usu Philonis." 

t Genesis xvii. 17 ; xviii. 12 ; xxi. 6, 9 ; xxvi. 8. 



22 THE PATRIARCHS. 

ine, but is withheld. As with his father, neighbouring 
herdsmen covet his wealth, and strive for his well ; 
and he does not " reprove," or demand a treaty, but 
yields unresistingly. Like him, too, he denies his 
wife, lest her beauty should bring him into danger. 
For him the eldest servant of Abraham's house is 
sent to the family home, in the far eastern country 
he had left, and brings back Rebekah, — the legend- 
ary type of the modestly-consenting bride, — from 
tending sheep and watering camels in the pastoral 
scenes of that region. When his eyes grow dim, so 
that he cannot see, his gentle and unsuspicious tem- 
per yields to the simple deceit practised by his wife 
and younger son ; and Jacob, instead of Esau, wins 
the patriarchal benediction. And the narrative there- 
after leaves him utterly without mention until his 
death, at the age of a hundred and eighty years. 

One more step of the genealogy narrows it down to' 
the family of Israel. Esau, the elder brother, was 
the more bold, frank, and generous man ; but, of 
hasty and scornful temper, he " sold his birthright 
for a mess of pottage," and imbittered his mother's 
heart by marrying out of the sacred family. Enraged 
at his brother's fraud, he threatened to kill him as 
soon as the days should come of mourning for his 
father Isaac. But Jacob fled. Esau — already more 
than half an alien by his wilder tastes and idolatrous 
alliances — went " to live among the eagles " in their 
rocky nests about Mount Hor ; and that wild region 
of ravines and crags, lying across the rough valley 
that runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba, 
became the home of the indomitable race of Edom. 



ESAU AND JACOB. 23 

Here Esau, their progenitor, dwelt (according to the 
genealogy) side by side with the remnants of the Hor- 
ites that had been driven out from Canaan long be- 
fore.* Here grew up the astonishing city of Selah, 
or Petra, bosomed completely in the craggy hills, yet 
containing elaborate temples, and thousands of habi- 
tations hollowed in the crumbling rock. To this wild 
region belong the names and the magnificent scenery 
of the Book of Job.f From Esau, in one line of de- 
scent, sprang Amalek, signifying the alliance of Edom 
with that wild desert tribe, or, as some think, their 
real ancestry. Thus our narrative connects the last 
of the bordering and hostile races in the common 
descent ; while acknowledging, half reluctantly, the 
earlier right and nobler temper of that tribe, which, 
at a later day, Israel was glad to call his " brother 
Edom." J 

From this point of separation the history follows 
only that group of twelve confederate tribes, or clans, 
known by the collective name of Israel. Jacob, the 
younger son of Isaac, is the type and progenitor of 
this race. His double name expresses that character 
of dualism, or duplicity, which has from the first 
distinguished them, — in their own traditions, as 
well as in the respect had of them among other 
nations. 

Jacob is "the Supplanter," — the wrestler, who, 
when he is thrown, gets his antagonist by the heel, 

* Genesis chap, xxxvi. 

t Possibly our one monument of the Edomitic branch of the sacred 
family. 

J Deuteronomy xxiii. 7. 



24 THE PATRIARCHS. 

and by obstinate stratagem wins the day. He is the 
younger brother, who cheats the elder, dupes his 
blind father, and outwits his uncle Laban in a run- 
ning game of shepherd-craft lasting twenty years. 
His course represents the secular and unheroic side 
of the patriarchal life. It is a series of struggles, of 
craft or strength. His toilsome journey, in flight for 
his life ; his dispute with the shepherds, and athlete 
strength in removing the stone from the well's mouth ; 
his bargain with Laban, and long delay in obtaining 
his loved and promised bride ; the contentions of 
his wives ; his adroit tricks of herdsmanship, which 
a Jew would recount with such infinite relish ; * his 
escape from Laban, and the affair of the teraphim, — 
are all so many passages of that struggle, in which 
he perpetually comes off victor. Gaining power and 
wealth during his long residence in the ancient fam- 
ily home, he heads the second great migration into 
Canaan, — the several tribes being already repre- 
sented by the sons born to him in Haran. 

Israel is the Prince of God, who " as a prince has 
wrestled mightily with God (in the night visions) and 
prevailed." His solemn introduction to the promised 
land is by " two hosts " of angels. The names Maha- 
naim, or " Hosts," Galeed, the " Heap of Witness," 
Peniel, the "Face of God," and Succoth, " the Tents," 

" Where he saw 
The fields pavilioned with his guardians bright," 

recall some of the most beautiful and impressive mem- 
ories of the patriarchal story. He hears the renewal 

* So Shylock, in " The Merchant of Venice," Act I. Sc. 3. 



RETURN OF JACOB. 



25 



of the magnificent promise made to Abraham, "Thou 
shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and 
to the north and to the south, and in thee and in thy 
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 
He returns to settle at Shechem, in the heart of the 
land, and builds an altar at Bethel, to commemorate 
the glorious and comforting vision that had cheered 
his exile, of " a ladder set up on the earth, and the 
top of it reached to heaven ; and behold, the angels 
of God ascending and descending on it ! " With 
his staff he passed over Jordan, and has become two 
bands. He went out as a solitary wanderer, with a 
stone for his pillow on the bare heath of Bethel, and 
now comes back with the state and fortune of an in- 
dependent prince. His return, as chief of a great 
migration, is a continual triumph, after the first three 
days, when he steals secretly away from keeping La- 
ban's cattle. His wily uncle, foiled in his own game 
of exaction and deceit, follows him up with a great 
company, but is warned in a dream, before he over- 
takes him, to have not a word to say to him, " good 
or bad." Rachel baffles her father's search for the 
household gods, whose images she has stolen ; so that 
he gets the advantage of the theft without the crime, 
and bears with him the peculiar blessing of the ances- 
tral hearth. And finally, he is able to build the " heap 
of witness," as a sign of the treaty he has made with 
Laban, that neither shall hereafter cross that boun- 
dary with a hostile force. 

Nay, more. When he hears that Esau, with his 
numerous troop, is coming to meet him, he is struck 
with terror, and a sort of contrition ; and hastens to 
2 



26 THE PATRIARCHS. 

offer him a rich present, with all the marks of honour 
due to him as the first-born. Thus he acknowledges, 
freely and obsequiously, the birthright won from Esau 
by fraud and lies, and says, with even slavish hom- 
age, " These are to find grace in the sight of my lord : 
receive my present at my hand, for therefore I have 
seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God." 
But this evident feeling of retribution in the narra^ 
tive opens the way to still further triumph. Esau 
not only met him generously and kindly, and " fell 
on his neck and kissed him," but yielded of his own 
accord the rich plains of Canaan, which he was strong 
enough to contest with him by force, and retreated 
peaceably to his Mount Seir in the wilderness, where 
he continued the chieftain of the tribe that had their 
dwelling " in the clefts of the rocks, and in the tops 
of the ragged rocks." 

Coming thus as a prince, and as an acknowledged 
independent force into the land of his inheritance, Ja- 
cob established himself near Shechem, Abraham's first 
resting-place, some fifty miles farther north than his 
father's home at Hebron. And when he journeyed, 
" the terror of God was upon the cities that were 
round about;" for his sons were strong-handed and 
crafty men, and bloodily they had avenged themselves 
upon the town whose chief offered insult to their sis- 
ter. By the massacre at Shechem, the patriarchal 
family sets its stamp of reprobation upon the proposed 
alliance, and the fusion of the races. It is a rehearsal 
of the scene of the Conquest. The first aggression is 
duly shown to be on the part of the Canaanites ; and 
the bloody stain can be expiated only by the extirpa- 



ISRAEL IN CANAAN. 27 

tion of one or the other house. Thus Jacob, as he 
afterwards recounts, is no peaceable settler, like his 
fathers, but has " wrested " his possession " out of 
the hand of the Amorite, with his sword and with 
his bow." * 

It only remained to consecrate his new acquisition 
to his ancestral faith. The teraphim, or household 
gods, that Rachel had brought from Padan-Aram, with 
all the ear-rings that were in the ears of his house- 
hold, he solemnly buried under the oak at Shechem, 
and built at Bethel an altar and pillar to " El, the 
God of Israel." f 

This series of events leaves Jacob in peaceable 
possession of a secure position and considerable 
power in Canaan. Whether a family or a people, 
Israel is now in apparently full enjoyment of his 
inheritance. But the moral of his wrestling with 
that mysterious phantom of the night, at Peniel be- 
yond Jordan, was to be manifest in his history, and 
the history of his race. That conflict had left him 
lame, and " halting upon his thigh ; " yet with the 
richer heritage of the future, and the title of a 
prince of God. What man has won from man, by 
the strength of his hand or the cunning of his brain, 
he must win again, as it were, from the invisible 
powers of his life, in conflict with secret pain and 
grief. Touchingly is this moral told in the later 
history of Jacob. His sons gave him deep shame, 
by their quarrels and violent revenge and profligate 
deeds. Rachel, his best beloved, mother of his two 
youngest sons, died, and was buried at Bethlehem- 

* Genesis, chap, xxxiv. and xlviii. 22. t Ibid., chap. xxxv. 



28 THE PATRIARCHS. 

on the way to Hebron. When he had gathered up 
his heart upon his favourite boy, he both injured the 
child's open innocence by mischievous partiality, and 
brought upon him his brothers' jealous hate ; so that, 
when Joseph went to visit them in the field, they 
" stripped him of his coat, his coat of many colours, 
that was on him, and they took him and cast him into 
a pit," to die there, and finally sold him for a slave to 
a caravan of Midianite traders that were going into 
Egypt. " And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sack- 
cloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many 
days : and all his sons and all his daughters rose up 
to comfort him ; but he refused to be comforted, and 
he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my 
son mourning. Thus his father wept for him." 

By this most beautiful of all relations of domestic 
grief, the Hebrew narrative guides the events of 
Jacob's life upon the broader stage of history, which 
the race is henceforth to occupy. It was needful for 
them, as had been already revealed (they said) to 
Abraham, that they " should first be strangers in a 
strange land that was not theirs, and should serve 
them, and they should afflict them four hundred 
years." As Abraham and Isaac had each by reason 
of famine gone up (in fact or intention) to the la 
of Egypt, so the whole race of Israel must go up 
thither, and for the same cause, before they could 
return and take the land of Canaan for their lasting 
possession. Such was the religious necessity, as con- 
ceived long after in the Hebrew mind. But there 
was a deeper historic necessity ; since the residence 
in Egypt was needful for those germs of character 



JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHEEN. 29 

and culture which made the Hebrews what they 
were, and rendered their after evolution possible. 

This decisive event in the history, as represented 
in their Scripture, God brought about in his own 
way, overruling the hatred and ill-treatment of 
Joseph's brethren to his own glory and their great 
advantage. For when, twenty years after the crime 
was wrought, they went up to Egypt to buy corn for 
themselves and their families, that they might not 
die, the discreet and powerful viceroy of that splen- 
did monarchy, before whom they prostrated them- 
selves so humbly, was their own despised and long- 
lost brother. With infinite skill, Judah, afterwards 
the proud rival of the family of Joseph on the soil 
of Palestine, is made to intercede in behalf of the 
suppliant house. With infinite tenderness Joseph 
soothes his brothers' self-reproach by showing how 
Providence has wrought their crime towards him 
into a blessing upon them all ; then satisfies the 
prompting of his own generous heart, settling them 
on the rich border-land of Egypt that looks towards 
Arabia and Palestine, as guardsmen of the frontier, 
and keepers of Pharaoh's herds. 

The traditions say that Jacob had wept himself 
blind with grief at Joseph's loss ; and that, when his 
brothers knew his safety, they did not venture to 
bring him the tidings, lest he should die from excess 
of joy. But Sarah, the young daughter of Asher,* 
sat at her grandfather's knee, and took a harp, and 
sang a pleasant chant of Joseph's loss, and his chang- 
ing fortunes, and his great glory in the realm of 

* Her name is preserved in Numbers xxvi. 46. 



30 THE PATRIARCHS. 

Egypt ; " and Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed 
it not. And they told him all the words of Joseph, 
which he said to them ; and when he saw the wag- 
gons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit 
of Jacob their father revived ; and Israel said, It is 
enough ; Joseph my son is yet alive ;. I will go and 
see him before I die." 

How fondly the Hebrew narrative dwelt on the 
magnificent contrast of Joseph's fortunes, and told 
over the course of innocence and integrity by which, 
from his humble condition as a slave, as a prisoner 
and as keeper of the prison, he had risen to be the 
great executive officer of the kingdom, and the sav- 
iour of a whole people from starvation ; through what 
fiery trials his virtue passed unscathed ; how nobly 
and kindly he had dealt by all he came in contact 
with ; how magnanimous and tender was his de- 
meanour towards his brothers, — there is no need to 
tell. Joseph becomes the fourth great patriarch of 
the Hebrew history. Though not the father, he is 
the deliverer and guardian of the entire race ; and, 
through his two sons, the inheritor of a double por- 
tion in the Promised Land. So sacred was his mem- 
ory, that it was their oath, religiously fulfilled, to 
carry his bones with them whenever they should re- 
turn and take possession, and bury them in the 
ground that Jacob had bought at Shechem, where 
pious tradition guards his sepulchre until this day. 

Such, in brief outline, is the account we have of 
this most critical event of the Hebrew destinies, — 
the transferring of Israel and his fortunes to Egypt. 
It was an event indispensable for their culture, and 



EGYPT. 31 

most significant for their whole later history, — an 
event wholly essential to the after type of Hebrew 
nationality, one which saved it from being merged 
undistinguishably among the petty populations of 
Canaan. 

Egypt then, as Athens and Rome at a later day, 
was the educator of nations. To her Greece owed 
its first germs of culture, and its first civilizing 
colonies. The hierarchy of the narrow Nile valley, 
with its immensely fertile and comparatively well- 
ordered domain, and its stupendous temples and 
public monuments, offered every attraction of wealth, 
astonishing works, and ancient wisdom. By its riches 
it tempted conquest ; by its secret arts, and the fame 
of its knowledge, it invited the curious to become 
its pupils. And, furthermore, it offered now the 
example of peace and plenty, together with a degree 
of social order hitherto unknown. For when the 
famine had put the people utterly into the hands of 
the king, he easily availed himself of the advantage 
of his position to bring about that condition of things 
which regal policy most desires. His forethought, by 
Joseph's prompting, had already stored by vast gran- 
aries while there was plenty ; and now the sagacious 
exile-statesman, to insure the benefits of a strong 
central power, exacted such conditions of supply, 
that the entire population became retainers of the 
king. The whole wealth and effective power of the 
country were in the monarch's grasp alone, while 
the people dwelt in cities.* 

This great social revolution is ascribed to the 

* Genesis xlvii. 20, 21. See Blackstone, Vol. II. p. 51. 



32 THE PATRIAECHS. 

energy and foresight of Joseph alone, — a revolu- 
tion, if it were indeed the work of Hebrew hands, 
bitterly felt afterwards by the Hebrew people. The 
entire theocratic organization of Egypt, by this ac- 
count, — at least the social despotism it brought about, 
— should be the work of their exile-patriarch. 

But here a faint side-light from other sources 
strikes across the track of our history. The Hycsos, 
or Shepherd dynasty, said Manetho, had subdued the 
Egyptian monarchy, and held the land under their 
sway for about five hundred years ; " burning down 
the cities and demolishing the temples of the gods." 
That they were a tribe kindred with the Hebrews 
has long been thought ; and even that they might 
be the very children of Israel, but that this would 
too completely contradict the only clear account we 
have. The Jews, at any rate, have claimed their 
kinship and hinted their identity. " The Egyptians," 
says Josephus,* " took many occasions to hate us and 
envy us, because our ancestors had had dominion 
over their country." Perhaps statements so wholly 
at variance as we find with regard to this event 
cannot be fully reconciled ; yet, assuming that it is 
one event they all refer to, the following seems the 
simplest and clearest outline of it that we can 
trace. 

The long dynasty of the Shepherds — a Phoenician 
or Palestinian tribe — seems to have some connec- 
tion with the frequent reference made to Egypt 
in the course of the patriarchal history. As nearly 
as the chronology can be made out, the conquest of 

* Against Apion, ch. 25. 



THE HYCSOS. 33 

that country by the Shepherds was not far from the 
assumed time of Abraham's migration ; as if both 
were parts of one great movement of the Asiatic 
tribes upon the West ; * and as if the wealth which 
Abraham carried away from Egypt were part of the 
spoils of that invasion.! The alien dynasty must 
long have found its footing insecure, and would 
naturally, in the course of time, seek to accommo- 
date itself to the elder theocratic institutions of the 
land. In this it gladly employed the wise co-opera- 
tion of the exiled Hebrew chieftain. J Embracing 
such an occasion as that afforded by the famine to 
strengthen its hold upon the soil and people of 
Egypt, it would welcome the aid that was offered 
by the stalwart and formidable forces of his -Shepherd 
brethren, — already a terror to the Canaanitish tribes, 
— who were summoned by his influence, and settled 
in Goshen, as defenders of the frontier against fresh 
invasion. 

In the course of a few generations after the settle- 
ment of Israel upon Egyptian soil, the native kings 
of that country (who had hitherto maintained them- 
selves in the district of Thebes and Upper Egypt) 
succeeded in expelling the invaders ; and " another 
king arose, who knew not Joseph," commencing the 
eighteenth dynasty of Manetho. The majority of 

* See Pococke's " India in Greece." 

t This conjecture is fortified by what we learn of Abraham's nu- 
merous slaves, especially the Egyptian Hagar. 

$ A monument of Sesortosis I. (B. C. 2755) alluding to a famine, 
and the statement of Herodotus (II. 409), that Sesostris divided the 
lands of Egypt, lead Bunsen to place the administration of Joseph at 
that date, and to make the Egyptian exile endure fourteen centuries. 
2* C 



34 THE PATEIAKCHS. 

the alien race were driven out, and became the 
kindred and bordering tribes of Edom, Moab, and 
Amnion ; while those who remained, constituting the 
family of Israel, were more and more reduced to the 
condition of slavery as the native dynasty extended 
itself farther down upon the territory of the Delta. 
Still, however, they retained traces of their moun- 
tain blood, and the bolder daring of the earlier time. 
The Egyptian historians, treating them as an unclean 
and leprous caste, recount their revolt and brief rule 
under Moses, and their final expulsion into the wil- 
derness towards Syria. And in their own narrative 
the same qualities of the race are shown, as fitting 
them for the same great enterprise. After their four 
centuries of Egyptian service, when the centralizing 
hierarchy pressed despotically upon their independ- 
ence, and the quarrel became inexpiable, we find 
this warrior-tribe, fully armed and equipped, ready 
to march over the border to the reconquest of their 
native Canaan. 

Whether this, or something like it, was the train 
of events which we discern so dimly through the 
beautiful domestic narrative of the Hebrews, we 
cannot tell with any certainty. It may be only one 
among the many fruitless conjectures that have been 
framed, to weave in the thread of sacred legend 
with the web of secular history. But the suggesting 
of it, together with the introduction of the Egyptian 
Pharaohs upon the stage, shows that we have come 
into a new period. Henceforth, the narrative comes 
before the light of the world, and its scenes are in 
the sight of nations. Patriarchal history, which is 



BOOK OF GENESIS. 35 

but the casting of historical events into the pictu- 
resque and dramatic form of family tradition, be- 
comes merged in the broader stream that embraces 
the institutions and life of a nation, and events acted 
out on the theatre of the world. 

A single word as to the sources of the narrative 
that has now been presented. As soon as we apply 
to this primitive cycle of events the usual principles 
of historical criticism, and judge of these traditions 
as we do those of other nations, we find ourselves in 
possession of most precious, but fragmentary, relics 
of that remote and obscure Past. We cannot hope 
to read it all into accurate and coherent history. 
But if we have only the smallest remnants of the 
world's most ancient poetry ; if only the faint reflec- 
tion of that primitive way of life ; if only the tra- 
ditions of the shepherd's tent or the Hebrew watch- 
fire, dwelling fondly on the memory of ancestors so 
pious and so noble, — even at this estimate, we have, 
in the Book of Genesis, the most unique and precious 
inheritance of all the remoter past; and our grati- 
tude cannot be too great for the pious care and rev- 
erence with which it has been guarded through so 
many ages : especially, when it is considered that 
here we have the half-hid and mysterious sources cf 
that stream of purer faith which widened afterwards 
into " the river of the water of life," to heal and 
bless all nations. 



II. MOSES. 



MOSES is the great representative man of the He- 
brew people, — by far the greatest man of that 
race. He is one of the very few men in the history of 
the world who have moulded from the first the insti- 
tutions and character of an entire people. Working 
first upon that unique and peculiar race, from whom 
we have received our inheritance of religious thought, 
he has stamped more deeply than all other men of 
antiquity the mark of his own mind upon the ideas, 
language, and customs of the modern world. Of all 
the men of history he is perhaps the clearest exam- 
ple of a Providential Man. 

As usual, the traditions of Jew and Mussulman 
have been busy with this great name. He was so 
holy a man, they said, that he knew only by their 
names the passions other men are subject to, having 
never felt the like himself; and God determined that 
the age to which he might live should fix the ex- 
treme limit of human life. His birth was announced 
long beforehand by astrologers to the Egyptian king, 
as the birth of one who should prove the ruin of that 
monarchy ; and it was watched for so cruelly, that 
seven thousand Hebrew infants were slain, in the 
hope that he might perish with them. And when 



TRADITIONS. 37 

the king was won by his daughter's supplication to 
spare the beautiful infant, and adopt it as his heir, 
he trampled the offered crown under his feet, over- 
turned the royal throne, and was only saved by 
miracles from the king's revived and superstitious 
jealousy. He led an expedition to repulse the ar- 
mies of Ethiopia, — the suspicious monarch still 
hoping that he might perish in that campaign ; 
crossed safely a region infested with venomous ser- 
pents, by the aid of a battalion of tamed storks ; cut 
the enemy to pieces by his sudden attack ; and mar- 
ried the Ethiopian princess, who passionately loved 
him for his valour and beauty, and betrayed her fa- 
ther's royal city for his sake.* 

The Egyptians confounded his name with that of 
the great patriarch Joseph ; saying that, when they 
were ordered by an oracle to expel all lepers from 
their country, a vast number of them, headed by 
" Osarsiph " (afterwards called Moses), fortified the 
city Rhamses, or Abaris, the old capital of the Shep- 
herd kings, and held it against them by aid of an 
immense force from Canaan, and ruled the land of 
Egypt for thirteen years ; then, on the return of 
Pharaoh from his exile, were driven back into the 
wilderness, and pursued as far as Syria, f The ac- 
count received among the Greeks and Romans made 
him to be an Egyptian priest, the leader and founder 
of the Hebrew people, — a worshipper of one God in 
silent thought only, or one who denied all deities, 
and adored only the circuit of the heavens, which 

* Josephus, Antiquities, I. 6. t Ibid., Against Apion. 



38 MOSES. 

embraces all things.* So deep and broad has the 
distorted shadow of the great Prophet and Lawgiver 
fallen across the path of the world's history ! 

The Hebrew account of his birth is simple and 
beautiful. In the lapse of time, the great service 
rendered to Egypt by the Hebrews was forgotten, 
and " another king arose, who knew not Joseph." 
Then the Egyptians said : " The children of Israel 
are more and mightier than we : let us deal wisely 
with them, lest they multiply and join our enemies, 
and fight against us, and so get them up out of the 
land." The " wise dealing " was to keep down their 
numbers by stripes and hard work; so they "made 
their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in 
brick, and in all manner of service in the field." 
But in Egypt (as since in Ireland) misery proved no 
check to numbers ; " the more they afflicted them, 
the more they multiplied and grew ; " till the horrid 
scheme was formed of casting every* male child of 
theirs into the river. But the child of Amram and 
Jochebed, of the family of Levi, was a goodly child, 
and by his mother's care was hid safely for three 
months, — the Arabs say, concealed in an oven by 
faggots, which the search-officers set on fire several 
times, each time an angel guarding him from the 
flame. Then his mother " took for him an ark of 
bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, 
and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags 
by the river's brink." The king's daughter, who 
came to bathe, sent to fetch the frail basket with the 

* Strabo, Lib. XVI. c. 2. Tacitus, Hist., V. 4, 5. 



FLIGHT AND EETURN. 39 

crying child ; his sister, who stood near, called her 
own mother for a nurse ; and so, providentially res- 
cued, the boy Moses became an adopted son in the 
royal family, entered the sacred caste of priests, and 
was " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." 

But the instinct of race, or the leading of Provi- 
dence, was strong enough to overrule his high-caste 
culture ; and when Moses came to be a man, he took 
his people's part so heartily, that he killed an Egyp- 
tian taskmaster whom he saw abusing one of the 
Hebrews, — having first foreseen (as his Jewish apol- 
ogist very characteristically says) that neither that 
man, nor any of his descendants, would ever repent 
or become a proselyte to all future time.* The deed 
was noised about, and Moses had to flee into the wil- 
derness for his safety. The tribe of Midian followed 
a quiet pastoral life in the rugged peninsula of Sinai, 
between the two arms of the Red Sea. Among them 
he found a shelter ; married a daughter of the head 
of the tribe ; and dwelt in the mountain solitudes for 
forty years. Then came the vision of the mysterious 
fire on the sacred hill, the revelation of God to his 
soul as the One Living and Eternal, and the com- 
mission to go back without fear to Egypt, and lead 
the people of Israel to the conquest of the Promised 
Land, seeing that " those men were dead that sought 
his life." Aaron, his elder brother, met him in the 
Mount of God, and together they went with the di- 
vine message to the afflicted people ; " and the people 
believed ; and when they heard that Jehovah had vis- 

* Winer. That " the sword of his lips leaped forth and slew the 
Egyptian " is the Talmudic version of the narrative. 



40 * MOSES. 

ited the children of Israel, and that he had looked 
upon their affliction, they bowed their heads and wor- 
shipped." 

The theocratic despotism of Egypt had at length 
brought things to such a pass for this stranger nation 
in its borders, that there was only one alternative 
before them. If they yielded any longer, they must 
forfeit their distinctive character, submit to customs 
and institutions alien and hateful to them, and be- 
come absorbed in the stagnant level of the lowest 
Egyptian caste, — the caste of shepherds, so degraded 
by the hierarchy to perpetuate their scornful and 
vindictive memory of the dynasty of Shepherd kings. 
From the nature of its constitution, and from its 
I inevitable instincts, such a theocracy is inexorable. 
Its divine right (just as we find it now in Rome) 
compels the denial of every other right. Its impera- 
tive dogmatism, its despotic socialism, must, in the 
long run, absorb or suppress every other element of 
the state. 

While the people were in the helpless, improvi- 
dent, disorganized condition of chance settlers in a 
rich valley like that of the Nile, — a tempting and 
defenceless spoil to every such invader as that bar- 
barous shepherd tribe, — the beginning of such a cen- 
tralizing power may have had its need and use. The 
story of Joseph relates that it was absolutely required, 
to save; the people from starvation. While the deci- 
sive social revolution was going on, and the balance 
wavered, and the ruling power craved all aid against 
the recent foe and the people's restiveness under new 
restraints, the shepherd alliance of Joseph's kindred 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 41 

was doubtless welcome ; and, while it fortified the 
border, might keep in a good degree its separate na- 
tionality, — like the Sclaves and Magyars on the Aus- 
trian frontier. 

But the terrible, all-absorbing central power en- 
croaches on the boundaries once granted willingly. 
The tribe, with its instincts of desert and mountain 
freedom, feels itself caught in the outer eddy of a 
whirlpool, from which, once in, there is no escape. 
There is every motive of quiet, comfort, habit, and 
plenty to submit : but the violent instincts of the 
blood rebel. The whole force of Egyptian despotism 
was finally put forth to reduce this stubborn tribe 
to the degraded level of the shepherd caste, to be the 
lowest bondmen, and slaves of the soil. Effectual 
resistance was not to be thought of. Discipline and 
skill were on one side ; on the other, numbers, dis- 
organization, ignorance, and fear. Conquest and 
dominion on the soil of Egypt were utterly hopeless. 
There remained, as the only .alternative to complete 
submission, the desperate possibility that by com- 
bined resistance, under an able head, they might 
win their way back to that wilderness-region of Asia, 
to try again the perilous chances of nomadic life. 

Their servitude had not endured long enough to 
crush their national temper, or spoil the quality of 
their patriarchal blood. For a long time they had 
lived as equal allies, perhaps with the pride of an 
equipped and organized force, on the frontier ; and 
the warm and fertile Nile valley, while it tempered 
their fierce courage, yet, by multiplying their num- 
bers, gave them a more decided feeling of their 



42 MOSES. 

strength. From seventy souls, they had risen in the 
four centuries (to trust their reckoning *) to some- 
thing more than two million. Even supposing, with 
some, that this number is ten times too great, or, as 
others suggest, that it includes the leagued tribes of 
the desert, the Kenites, and possibly some nomadic 
Hebrews, who joined them when they had come out 
of Egypt, and of whom but few ever went to dwell 
in Canaan, — still they made a numerous and for- 
midable force. By the lowest reckoning, they were 
some sixty thousand armed men who went up in bat- 
tle array, and " harnessed, out of the land of Egypt ; " 
besides the "mixed multitude" of Egyptian fugitives, 
who chose to share their fortunes in the wilderness. f 
It was this immense armed emigration that found 
its lead in Moses. The elder brother, who repre- 
sents the people still suffering in Egypt, defers to 
the younger, who brings the decisive alliance from 
beyond the border. " The man Moses was very 
great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's 
servants, and in the sight of the people." Aaron 
was but " his spokesman unto the people ; instead of 
a mouth to Moses, while he should be to him instead 
of God." The consummate leadership of Moses is 
even enhanced by his self-distrust, because he had 
not the gift of ready speech, or popular arts. The 
position he took and held so vigorously until his 

* One example of this reckoning is shown in the case of Kohath, 
the grandfather of Moses, whose descendants, during the migration, 
are set down as 8,600. The number of the first-born (Numbers iii. 43) 
makes the Hebrew families average thirty or forty children each. 

t Bun sen places the date of the Exodus very confidently at about 
B.C. 1314. 



MOSES AND AARON. 43 

death, was " not of his own mind." It was only- 
after a long struggle that he yielded to the summons, 
and suffered himself to become master of the event. 
It was only by long experience of command that 
he found the resources of his own resolute and 
unconquered will ; or learned to rely on that aus- 
tere and high conviction developed in the desert 
solitude out of the early germs of his Egyptian 
culture. The God of Israel had chosen for his 
champion the one man in whom the needed qual- 
ities met, to inaugurate a new era in the destinies 
of mankind. 

Moses left no successor, no inheritor of his rank 
and peculiar office. -Of the sons of Zipporah we 
know almost nothing ; and his later alliance with an 
" Ethiopian " or Arab woman only brought on him 
the reproaches of his kindred. He lived, as he died, 
alone. Aaron the Levite could fulfil the ritual, and 
the priest's routine ; he could use the sacred rod at 
the bidding of Moses, or fabricate the golden calf 
at the people's clamour ; and when, disarrayed of his 
vestments, he died upon Mount Hor, he left a family 
line of priests, that continued till the day of Christ, 
and (according to the Jewish idea) must be holding 
its functions in reserve even now. But Moses, the 
Prophet, the Lawgiver, the great-hearted and un- 
wearied leader of a turbulent multitude for the 
" forty years " of their desert-wandering, filled a 
place which no one after him was able to fill. An- 
cient priesthoods all descended through the family or 
tribe ; but there is no primogeniture in the succes- 
sion of providential men. 



44 MOSES. 

Divine wonders, in the Hebrew narrative, precede 
and attend that wonderful migration. The people's 
just demand was backed by the irresistible power 
of God. The prophet's staff became a serpent, and 
devoured the rods of the magicians who dared to 
vie with him in wonder-working skill. The water 
of the sacred river was turned to blood. The land 
swarmed with noisome heaps of frogs. Gnats and 
gad-flies tormented the Egyptian people. A pesti- 
lence assailed their cattle. Their reproach of the 
Hebrews as an unclean race was revenged by ulcers 
and leprosy, invading even the sacred persons of 
their priests. Violent hail from that generally cloud- 
less sky, and then great armies of locusts, ravaged 
the crops of the rich valley, destroying utterly every 
green thing. A " darkness that might be felt " gath- 
ered upon the land, lasting three whole days. Still 
" Pharaoh's heart was hardened, that he would not 
let the people go." 

It is a contest between Jehovah, the guardian 
Deity of the Hebrews, and Pharaoh their implacable 
tyrant ; a declaration of war against the idol-gods of 
Egypt ; " a divine drama carried out in human his- 
tory, — so both to be regarded and prized." At each 
stage of it Jehovah makes the tyrant's heart more 
stubborn, so as to furnish room for a fresh display of 
his irresistible strength. The scourge that smote the 
people struck just where it would be most keenly 
felt in their religious sensibility ; for of all nations 
the Egyptians were most scrupulous in their super- 
stitions. It was the river they honoured as " the 
good Osiris," and prayed to yearly for its propitious 



DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. 45 

overflow, whose waters ran blood and bred innumer- 
able swarms of unclean creatures. It was the sacred 
bullock, representative of the divine Apis, that per- 
ished with the pestilence. The diseases that came 
on them defiled them for religious rites, as well as 
tortured their miserable bodies ; and their own ac- 
counts, even more emphatically than the Hebrew 
ones, declare their secret dismay before this new 
religious Terror. But in a religious quarrel, it 
is more fatal to yield than to suffer. And it was 
not until the mysterious death-angel had smitten 
the first-born in every house, " from the first-born 
of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first- 
born of the captive that was in the dungeon," that 
the obstinate king relented. In the mourning and 
alarm of that dreadful night, the Egyptians not 
only allowed but hastened the Israelites' flight, and 
urged propitiatory gifts upon them ; for they said 
in their terror, " We be all dead men." So Jehovah 
led them out " in battalions ; and they spoiled the 
Egyptians." * 

The treacherous king, rallying from that panic 
terror, followed them with an immense force, — " all 
the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one 
of them." From the direct course toward the 
desert, that leads to Canaan, Moses turned boldly 
to the south, so as to be hemmed inevitably between 
the mountain and the sea. There was only one 
narrow way of escape ; and that would lead right 
back to the land of bondage. The hosts lay en- 

* According to Goethe ( West-ostliches Divan), a massacre like the 
Sicilian Vespers. 



46 MOSES. 

camped close by each other all night, and in the 
morning the deliverance came. For " Jehovah had 
caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all 

that night ; and the children of Israel went in 

the midst of the sea upon the dry ground ; and the wa- 
ters were a rampart to them on their right hand and 
on their left." And when the Egyptians had hastily 
pursued, and were now in the channel of the waters, 
" the sea returned to his strength when the morning 
appeared ; " and the full flood so utterly over- 
whelmed them, that " there remained not so much 

as one of them ; and Israel saw the Egyptians 

dead upon the sea-shore." * 

That noblest of the Hebrew odes, which celebrates 
this stupendous deliverance, is related to have been 
sung by Moses and the whole host of Israel, while 
Miriam and all the women accompanied them " with 
timbrels and with dances." It has been called " the 
song of the Pass-over ; " and may have made a part 
of the yearly festivities in after ages, which still 
looked back to this as the most glorious day in all 
the Hebrew annals. 

SONG OF MOSES, f 

Sing praises to Jehovah, who hath triumphed gloriously ! 
The war-horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea ! 
Jehovah is our strength and song, — his victory proclaim ; 
Jehovah is a man of war, — Eternal is his name ! 

* The ebb and flow of the tides in the Red Sea, (noticed by Hero- 
dotus, II. 11,) reaches a height of six or seven feet, 
t Exodus, chap. xv. 



SONG OF MOSES. 47 

The sea hath overwhelmed King Pharaoh's chariots and his host ; 

The chosen of his captains all are in the Red Sea lost ! 

Proud Pharaoh's troop is swallowed up! by mighty floods o'er- 

thrown, 
Horseman and chariot sank into the bottom like a stone ! 



Glorious in strength is thy hand, O Jehovah ! 

Thy hand, O Jehovah, hath crushed the proud foe ! 
By thy might overwhelmed are the men that defied thee, 
Like stubble consumed by thine anger's fierce glow ! 
At the blast of thy nostrils' terrible breath, 
Together the sea roaring gathereth ! 
The flood-tide mounts in a towering heap ; 
The waves are congealed in the heart of the deep ! 

To the chase ! overtake them ! the enemy cried : 
There is vengeance to satisfy, spoil to divide : 

The sword in my hand shall be red with slaughter ! 
But Thou with thy storm-wind dost heavily blow ; 
Thy waves and thy billows in strength overflow ; 

They sank like lead in the mighty water ! 

What other god is like to thee, Jehovah ? 

What other god can stand before thy sight ? 
Alone art Thou, of glorious majesty, 

Fearful in praises, wonderful in might ! 
Earth swallowed them when thou held'st out thine hand : 

But Thou in mercy leadest forth thine own, 
Thy people, — their oppressor overthrown, — 

In strength dost lead them to thy holy land. 

Now shall the nations all the tidings hear ; 

Our fathers' foes, — their hearts shall faint with fear ; 

And sorrow shall lay hold on Palestine, 

Astonishment on Edom's royal line ; 

Trembling shall seize on Moab's men of might ; 

The tribes of Canaan melt before our sight. 



48 MOSES. 

For fear is come upon them, and alarm, 
A mighty dread before thy stretched-out arm. 
Still as a stone they sit while we pass by, 
The people thou hast ransomed gloriously. 

Jehovah ! bring thy people in, and plant them 
Upon the mount of thine inheritance ; 
The place which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, 
The sanctuary which thy hands have built ; 
There shall Jehovah reign for evermore ! 

The entire track of the Israelite wandering is 
fringed with mystery and miracle. A pillar of cloud 
by day, and of fire by night, led the whole weary 
march. When the people were perishing for want of 
food, manna, the sweet gum of a desert shrub, fell 
like hoar-frost about the camp ; or quails, in incredi- 
ble numbers, afforded them an over-supply of flesh. 
Through their forty years' journeying, their very gar- 
ments and sandals waxed not old. The bitter spring 
of Marah was made sweet by the wood of a certain 
tree ; and when Moses struck the rock in Horeb, 
abundant water gushed out to quench their raging 
thirst, following the camp (by after tradition) through 
all the years of wandering in an unfailing rill. The 
marauding tribe of the Amalekites assault them at 
Rephidim ; but there is no weariness or discomfiture 
to the Israelites as long as the sacred rod is held out 
in the hand of Moses ; and in the hour of victory Je- 
hovah assures him by an oath that he will have war 
against Amalek from generation to generation.' 



* 



* Thus is assigned the date of that inexpiable hatred borne towards 
Amalek by the race of Israel, of which we find scattered hints down to 
a late period. The separation between Samuel and Saul is referred to 



MOUNT SINAI. 49 

Then follows the astonishing scene of the announce- 
ment of the Law : when " Mount Sinai was altogether 
on a smoke, because Jehovah came down upon it in 
fire ; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke 
of a furnace ; and the whole mount quaked greatly : 
and when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and 
waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God an- 
swered him by a voice." 

The region of Mount Sinai, or Horeb, is one admi- 
rably fitted for the purpose Moses had in view, — the 
discipline of his fugitive multitudes, and the estab- 
lishing of his institutions and laws. The scenery is 
of a sort to impress them powerfully, — all the more 
by its contrast to the Nile valley they had lately left. 
The rugged desert pathway, the precipitous crags, the 
torrents of water gushing from the rock, the sudden 
rains which make the climate of that peninsula so 
different from the opposite Egyptian shore, the unac- 
customed thunder and lightning, and mountain tem- 
pests, — these, added to the change suddenly intro- 
duced into their whole manner of life, and contrasted 
in each particular with the stifling oppression and 
ample diet they had known in Egypt, made their daily 
existence one of perpetual marvel and excitement. 
It was in the still fresh experience of this overwhelm- 
ing change that Moses gathered them on one of the 

the anger of the former, because Saul had come to terms with them 
when already " utterly destroyed." When they had been quelled by re- 
peated inroads, a band of five hundred, in Hezekiah's time, went out 
to Mount Seir, and " smote the remainder of them that were escaped/' 
And when the Jews would curse the memory of Hainan, their perse- 
cutor in Queen Esther's time, they said he was of Agag's blood, as 
tracing his descent from this hated and exterminated tribe. 
3 D 



50 MOSES. 

broad levels embosomed among the mountain ranges, 
where he established the form of their camp-disci- 
pline, and dictated the principles of their national 
code. 

No one could know as well as he the need of giv- 
ing the people a strong bond of union, and a distinct 
stamp of nationality. Their quarrel with the Egyp- 
tians was a religious one, in its nature irreconcilable. 
From the course they had taken there was no retreat. 
The king's treachery in pursuing them had forfeited 
whatever claim there might be for the return of the 
rich prize they had "borrowed" in their flight; while 
the utter destruction of his armament had made them, 
instead of fugitive slaves, triumphant foes. Their 
complaints of the severe discipline they must submit 
to, or the privations of the wilderness, and their hun- 
gry looking back to the leeks, onions, and flesh-pots 
of Egypt, might spoil them for the future, but could 
not bring back the past. Their only help now was 
in yielding themselves to be governed by the one 
master mind. 

Of that prodigious and decisive event of the He- 
brew history, which we call the forty years' wander- 
ing in the desert, we have but the scantiest fragments 
of tradition. By far the larger portion of the nar- 
rative that contains them is made up of the detail of 
law and ritual, such as it was doubtless fabricated 
through long ages of the theocracy. The " Institu- 
tions of Moses" present us the ideal system of the 
national government and faith as conceived long 
after. by the ruling Order of the Jewish priesthood: 
not a practical and working polity, much less one 



THE LAW. 51 

enforced during that period of nomadic life. The 
ideal of the Hebrew life and institutions is projected 
upon the remote background of an half-historic, half- 
legendary Past. The name of the great Lawgiver, 
with the solemn sanctions of the Divine command, is 
assumed as authority for a system which certainly lay 
in abeyance for several centuries, and then was only 
attempted to be carried out by the zeal of priests, 
with the countenance of pious kings. Moses himself 
is not much known by name until the time of David, 
or even later. We can by no means treat the He- 
brew history as if the theory of it were ever realized 
in fact. Some of the most marked features of the 
Law, as the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee, 
were probably never carried out, except partially, 
after the return from the captivity. Even the sacri- 
fice of victims, so essential in the propitiatory rites 
of the later Jewish faith, was almost certainly an 
infrequent thing in the desert life (where flesh-meat 
was nearly unknown), and was held of small ac- 
count by several of the prophets, who declared that 
it was never divinely instituted at all.* It is* only 
when we consider the broader features of the He- 
brew nationality, and the radical type of character 
in the Hebrew institutions, that we can feel confi- 
dent in determining the idea of the great Lawgiver 
himself. What is essential to this we are justified 
in ascribing, at least in germ, to him ; whatever 
goes beyond it is open to the largest and freest criti- 
cism, and may be attributed either to prior customs 
and tribal institutions, or to later developments of 

* See Jeremiah vii. 22, 23, and Amos v. 25. 



52 MOSES. 

the Hebrew hierarchy.* Considering the circum- 
stances under which he acted, and the practical exi- 
gencies of his command, his aim was doubtless far 
simpler than that usually ascribed to him. His im- 
mediate task, at any rate, was this : to take a tribe, 
once valiant and fierce, but now corrupted by a gen- 
eration or two of slavery ; to restore its courage and 
self-reliance, and make it a united people, fit to sub- 
due and occupy its traditional heritage in Canaan. 

The bond of union, the centre of loyalty and 
authority for the entire people, should be the worship 
of their powerful Deliverer from bondage and their 
nation's God. It was no abstract, infinite, universal 
Deity they were to honour in their tabernacle service ; 
but " the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob," known in that earlier age as " El, 
the Mighty," f but now more personally as Jehovah. 
The name is significant both of life and immortality ; 
and in it is broadly indicated the type of the Hebrew 
faith. This has been called a religion of Life, in 
contrast to the Egyptian, — a religion of Death. Je- 
hovah" is the " God of the spirits of all flesh," in 
contrast to the worship of idols and the fetichistic 
adoration of beasts. Among the Egyptians the body 
was held sacred and embalmed ; the Hebrews re- 
tained some of their rites of burial, but held in rev- 
erence only the spirit, and the blood which was its 
symbol. The Egyptians had an elaborate ritual, rep- 
resenting the judgments of the future world, which 
unseen realm was the prominent fact of their theol- 
ogy: Moses kept even the doctrine of immortality 

* See hereafter, on " The Law." f Exodus vi. 3. 



RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 53 

itself in abeyance, and made both his religion and 
its retributions to refer to the present life only. 
While " the Egyptians " (says Tacitus) " worship 
many animals and wrought images, the Jews ac- 
knowledge but one Divinity, and with their mind 
alone." * These points of strong contrast are ap- 
parent on the surface, and are justly referred to 
Moses, who retained the interior vitality, while he 
renounced the enslaving superstitions, of the " wis- 
dom" he had learned. 

As the lowest caste in the Egyptian theocratic sys- 
tem, the Hebrews had doubtless been excluded from 
the religious privileges of their masters. f Now, it 
should be their glory to claim an' inheritance grander 
than every other : they should be " a kingdom of 
priests, and an holy nation." It was the sin of those 
who composed the Egyptian hierarchy, that, while 
they revered in sacred mysteries the One eternal and 
unspeakable Divinity, they taught the people only in 
the gross symbols of the old nature-religion, and en- 
couraged a grovelling and slavish superstition. Moses 
nobly disclaimed every exclusive privilege, or monop- 
oly of divine truth ; he would have " all Jehovah's 
people to be prophets ; " J and, in announcing the 
Decalogue as the Hebrew fundamental law, he began 
with the grandest declaration of His paramount sov- 
ereignty over nature, and the strict forbidding of 
worship to any other. This was the central and the 
loftiest thought of Moses, — not so much an absolute 
Monotheism, as the emancipation of an entire people 

* Historic, V. 5. f Lessing. 

t Numbers xi. 29. 



54 MOSES. 

from the sensuous bondage and degrading terrors of 
that ancient superstition. 

This was the theoretical aim, such as we may con- 
ceive it to have been long maturing in the mind of 
Moses. The practical task — one of immense and 
unforeseen difficulties — was to make it the real cen- 
tre of the national life, and to change it from a spec- 
ulative to a working faith. The conditions in which 
he found himself dictated the terms. In the style 
of the Mosaic legislation, as we may venture to inter- 
pret it, we see the nature of those conditions. 

The Decalogue was the form of Covenant between 
the people and their Divinity, — the primitive type 
and nucleus of the entire code. Of its ten brief 
precepts, we may reckon five to the right hand for 
divine duties,* or Piety, and five to the left for social 
duties, or Humanity. The code, in its complete de- 
velopment, is apparently made up of groups of ten 
precepts each. Eight such groups have been thought 
to be pretty clearly traced ; and the entire scheme 
was probably meant to make up the complement of 
a hundred. f 

The custom of Sacrifice was retained from the 
practices of ancient tribes, with many forms taken 
from the Egyptian ritual. A large number of special 
precepts and allusions give vivid expression to the 
primitive instincts associated with that immemorial 
rite ; — a sense of the sacredness of all life ; a keen 
and trembling sympathy with the natural world ; rev- 

* In which Philo includes reverence to parents. 
t See Ewald. Also, the full illustration in Bunsen, Bibelwerk, 
Vol. V. 



EELIGIOUS KITES. 55 

erence at the half-human intelligence of the lower 
animals, or their inexplicable instincts approaching 
to divination ; and the mysterious awe felt at the 
sight of blood ; — qualities traceable throughout the 
Hebrew history and literature.* A remarkable ves- 
tige of remoter and more inhuman superstitions has 
been thought, perhaps unjustly, to lie in the hint, 
that the victim of the Passover is a substitute for the 
first-born child,f — recalling the mythic offering up 
of Isaac. And still another relic of an obscure and 
almost vanished superstition is found in the re- 
markable rite of expiation, in which two goats were 
set apart, one " for Jehovah," and the other " for 
Azazel," — the demon of the wilderness, whom the 
Egyptians in like manner appeased under the name 
of Typhon.J 

Festivals, at new and full moon, which led to the 
primitive and simple division of time by weeks, § also 
great annual holidays in spring and harvest, belong 
to the most remote antiquity of the East. These 
were celebrated with all the solemn splendour of the 
Hebrew ritual. Thus they became the occasion of 
developing the germs of the much-needed feeling and 
faith ; at the same time that this indulgence of an- 
cient habit was a partial check on the invasion of 
alien superstitions, — the Syrian form being invested 
with a Hebrew sense, and made (as in the Passover, 
Pentecost, and Tabernacles) the consecration of great 
national memories. 

* See Exodus xxiii. 19 ; Levit. xvii. 13 ; Jer. xii. 4 ; Ezek. xxiv. 7. 

t Exodus xiii. 12. 

X Leviticus, chap. xvi. See Movers, " Die Phonizer," Vol. I. 

§ Ewald, "Anhang," p. 356. 



56 MOSES. 

We thus discern in the Hebrew institutions traces 
of strange rites and primeval manners, adopted or 
inherited from Arabia, Syria, or Egypt. Blending, 
as they did, such a diversity of elements, they re- 
quired a corresponding luxury and complexity of 
ceremonial. What the design of the lawgiver might 
have withheld, the people's demand enforced. An 
elaborate ritual, prepared with all the gorgeousness 
their desert wealth could muster, with shrine and 
ark of Egyptian pattern, and an altar of incense ever 
burning, — with symbolic vestments for the priests, 
and the oracular Urim and Thummim in the breast- 
plate, all closely copied from the practice of the Egyp- 
tians,* — satisfied the popular imagination, which 
craved the stately ceremonial they had left behind. 
The simple and austere morality of the Decalogue, 
or the patriarchal worship enlarged to the new pro- 
portions of their national life, was not enough for 
them. The transient fervor of enthusiasm had for- 
saken them. From his solitude of forty days Moses 
returned to find them in a noisy and lewd carouse 
about a "golden calf" that Aaron had moulded in 
the likeness of the bull Apis which the Egyptians wor- 
shipped. Then he broke the two stone tables that 
contained the simpler law ; and then (as we may con- 
ceive) he framed, to meet their lower apprehension, 
whatever of that elaborate ceremonial is justly as- 
cribed to him.f 

The primitive system of the Tribe or Clan lies at 

* Kitto. 

t The form of Decalogue, or " Covenant/' given in Exodus, chap, 
xxxiv., is almost purely ritual. See Newman's Hebrew Monarchy, 
Chap. IV., and Bunsen, Yol. V. 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 57 

the base of the social institutions of the Hebrews. 
It was closely associated with most of the religious 
rites or symbols of antiquity.* It was recognized 
throughout by Moses, and was only gradually and 
imperfectly absorbed in the later institution of the 
Monarchy. The earlier relics of Hebrew literature 
(as the Song of Deborah and the Oracle of Jacob) 
present very vividly the characteristics of the several 
tribes of Israel. Nothing is more essential to the 
clear understanding of the history than this distinct 
and jealous individuality of the petty clans. The 
family interest is somewhat merged in the nationality 
of the faith and worship ; but it is the turning-point 
in determining the rights of property. Destined to 
an agricultural life, with moderate possessions, each 
man held his estate as tenant of the tribe. The fam- 
ily title was the only inalienable one ; every holding 
must revert at last to the original tenant ; and no 
sale or transfer of land could be effected for a longer 
period than fifty years. 

" Many of the laws given by Moses were instituted 
partly in compliance to the people's prejudice, and 
partly in opposition to their superstitions." f The 
laws of custom which he was forced to allow were 
those of nomadic and barbarous life, — such as polyg- 
amy or arbitrary divorce, the extraordinary ordeals 
of the husband's jealousy, and the duty of the near- 
est relative to avenge a homicide. $ The most apt 
commentary on a large portion of the Pentateuch is 

* See Grote's Greece, Vol. III. chap. 10. 
t Warburton. 

| See Michaelis. Also, Layard's "Babylon and Nineveh," p. 305. 
3* 



58 MOSES. 

a comparison of the customs still prevailing among 
the people of the East. 

It would not be doing justice to the man (or to 
the system of which he was founder) to omit the 
humane and merciful provisions of the code. The 
seventh day should be a day of rest to labouring man 
and beast ; for, heavily as they had been oppressed, 
the Hebrews might never inflict on their bondmen 
as heavy and unrelieved a yoke. The Hebrew ser- 
vant went free at the end of six years ; maiming, or 
other cruelty, entitled the bondman to his freedom ; 
the fugitive had earned full title to his liberty, and 
might not be returned to slavery ; and among the 
most sacred duties was that of charity to the poor.* 
Peace, said the later law, must be first offered before 
assault should be made upon a town ; the fruit-trees 
of an enemy's country might not be destroyed ; it 
was a crime to mislead the blind or deaf ; and even 
the ox should not be muzzled when treading out the 
corn.f 

It was one great merit of the old theocracies — 
Egyptian and Etruscan as well as Hebrew — that 
they despotically enforced those conditions of the 
general health which most modern states so peril- 
ously neglect. Very many of the Mosaic laws are 
sanitary regulations, dictated perhaps by the tradi- 
tions of the Egyptian priesthood (which embodied the 
best medical knowledge of the time), and adapted to 
the necessities and exposures of a camp-life in the 

* Exodus xxi. 2, 26, 27. Deuteronomy xxiii. 15 ; xxiv. 19, 20. 
t Leviticus xix. 14. Deuteronomy xx. 10, 19; xxvii. 18; xxv. 4. 
But see 2 Kings iii. 19. 



SPECIAL REGULATIONS. 59 

desert, or to the conditions of settlement, as con- 
querors, in a strange land. The distinction of clean 
and unclean beasts, the minute regulations concern- 
ing leprosy, and other maladies of the race and cli- 
mate, and many of the ceremonial ordinances (re- 
garding, for instance, the rite — both sacrificial and 
sanitary — of circumcision, and personal unclean- 
ness) testify to the anxious oversight bestowed on 
the conditions of health.* A large portion of these 
statutes must be judged simply by the rules of health, 
decency, and convenience, as applied to the circum- 
stances of the " wandering." No sanitary police in 
modern times, it has been said, and the discipline of 
no European army, has equalled in effectiveness and 
skill the health regulations of the Hebrew Law.f 

Fortified with this discipline, and taking advantage 
of the first flush of enterprise and confidence they 
would beget, Moses led his people to the southern 
border of Canaan. But now their hearts began to 
fail them. Unnerved by the peaceable and slavish 
life they had led in the hot marsh-lands of the Nile, 
they were in no condition to cope with the giant 
mountaineers, the sons of Anak, before whom they 
were in their sight " as grasshoppers." The land was 
very rich and fair, said the spies sent to survey its 
quality ; and from the valley of Eshcol two men 
brought a cluster of grapes between them on a staff, 

* Some of the ordinances (as the prohibition of camel's flesh) seem 
partly designed to prevent association with the Arab tribes. The earlier 
law permits the use of locusts, which a life in the desert might re- 
quire ; the later, unconscious of the reason, omits the law. Leviticus, 
chap. xi. Deuteronomy, chap. xiv. 

t Michael is. 



60 MOSES. 

to prove their words. But, withal, so formidable 
were the tribes of the hill-country which guarded 
that frontier, that the Israelites absolutely refused 
to advance another step. A violent mutiny rose in 
the camp ; all confidence in the leadership of Moses 
was gone ; and Jehovah was on the point of giving 
over the recreant people, but for his passionate in- 
tercession.* 

There was but one course to follow. The leader's 
mind was too clear not to see it, too calm and strong 
to flinch from it. Perhaps such another instance of 
resolute and high-minded patience is not to be found 
in all history as this : when the old man Moses, al- 
ready (by our account) more than eighty, turned de- 
liberately back from the Promised Land, — the goal 
just reached of his hope and expectation, — and 
adopted the far-seeing policy of adhering to that no- 
madic life till a whole generation should be trained 
of sinewy and determined men, inured to the toil, 
and bred to the hardy valour of the wilderness. 

The period which follows is an utter blank ; — no 
date, no incident, to mark the course of events ; noth- 
ing but the barren register of forty encampments, and 
the vague tradition of a wandering of forty years. f 

* Numbers, chaps, xiii., xiv. 

t Numbers, chap, xxxiii. Goethe, whom Bohlen follows, (Comm. on 
Genesis,) denies the existence of this blank; holding that Moses gave 
back through sheer incapacity, and that the expedition was finally saved 
by his opportune death at the hands of Joshua and Caleb. That the 
history of Moses is cast in cycles of the sacred number forty is suffi- 
ciently evident ; but without being responsible for the figures, we may 
be justified in accepting a fact which left so deep a mark on the national 
mind and temper. The earlier allusions to it are Ex. xvi. 35 ; Num. 
xiv. 33, xxxii. 13; Josh v. 6, xiv. 10. It is needless to say, that 



THE DESEET WANDERING. 61 

A few months' margin on either side of this great 
chasm contains the scanty record of a few incidents 
that relieve the bare monotony. Apparently, the 
head-quarters were established at Kadesh,* not far 
from the southern boundary of Canaan. Here Mir- 
iam died, and here the holy tabernacle rested, while 
the tribes dispersed for easier subsistence about the 
rocky region inhabited by allied and kindred people. 
The few incidents that are preserved tell of formi- 
dable seditions, suppressed by appalling and miracu- 
lous punishment ; — how Nadab and Abihu, sons of 
Aaron, who offered " strange fire," were consumed 
by a flame that leaped on them from the altar; and a 
sudden chasm in the ground ingulfed the rebellious 
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with their partisans and 
families ; how at three several times a terrible pesti- 
tilence was only checked by the interposing of the 
priest ; and fiery serpents bit the people so that great 
numbers of them died, when they " spake against 
God and against Moses," till the plague was stayed 
by the brazen figure of a serpent exhibited on a staff. f 
It is told, too, how the pitiless camp-discipline stoned 
a man to death who gathered sticks upon the Sab- 
bath, and punished blasphemy in the same summary 
way, as treason against Jehovah, the nation's king.ij: 

geographical details of such a campaign are wholly conjectural and 
worthless. As to the capability of the peninsula at this time to sup- 
port a considerable population, see Ewald, Vol. II. p. 201. Goethe 
says, " The subsistence of a migratory horde is no mystery ; they live 
by the law of plunder " ! 

* Numbers xx. 1. The name signifies a sanctuary. 

t Leviticus, chap. x. Numbers, chaps, xi., xvi., xxi., xxv. 

t Numbers, chap. xv. Leviticus, chap. xxiv. 



62 MOSES. 

These are but so many illustrations of the rigour of 
Levitical or theocratic rule. Dissent, and if possible 
discontent, must be suppressed at any hazard ; just as 
the common sense of military service is, that mutiny 
is death. They are preserved, as if to show the strin- 
gent handling that moulded this people's infancy, and 
revenged contumacy, and guarded it from contamina- 
tion, as well as to assert the inviolable sanctity of the 
commission which Moses and Aaron held. 

Among these scanty memorials, too, are preserved 
a few fragments of Hebrew song, — relics (as they 
may well be thought) even of that remote and dim 
antiquity. Such are the form of benediction : — 

" Jehovah bless and keep thee ! 
Jehovah make his face to shine upon thee, 

And shield thee with his grace ! 
Jehovah lift his countenance upon thee, 
And give thee peace ! " 

the Hebrew battle-song : — 

" Our God, Jehovah, rise ! 
Scatter thine enemies ! 
Let them that hate thee flee before thy face ! " 

and the night-song of the camp : — 

" Return, O Jehovah ! return to dwell 
With the myriad thousands of Israel ! " * 

The weary term of desert life was at length over, 
and the children of Israel were once more marshalled 
towards the border of their inheritance. Aaron had 
died upon Mount Hor, in the land of Edom ; f where 

* Numbers vi. 24 - 26 ; x. 35, 36. t Numbers, chap. xx. 



SONG OF THE WELL. 63 

the Arabs revere his sepulchre to this day, and call 
the mountain by his name. Even Moses had been 
once untrue to the quiet dignity and resolute faith 
of his position, when the people " chode with him at 
the water of Meribah ; " and might not enter the 
" promised land," but only behold it from afar. 
Passing round to the east of the Dead Sea, far 
from the formidable frontier they had approached 
before, they came to the rich pasture district where 
the Amorite conquest parted the kindred tribes of 
Moab and Ammon. This was the scene of the first 
decisive victories ; and this district (known by the 
general name of Gilead) became the earliest Hebrew 
settlement and the patrimony of the three pastoral 
tribes. 

The revived cheer and fiercer spirit of the people 
appear in all the incidents of the way. The " Song 
of the Well" expresses the exulting joy of the host 
at finding itself once more in a land of brooks and 
living springs, and the spirit of that league in which 
the people and their chief were one : — 

" Sing to the springing well ! 
By captains brave the well was made, — 

Princes of Israel : 
Their staff and sceptre were the spade 

That dug the people's well ! " * 

Sihon, king of the Amorites, and afterwards the 
giant Og, king of Bashan, came out to defend their 
newly-got conquest ; but in obstinate battle were de- 
feated and slain. The following brief battle-song 
commemorates with sarcastic triumph the victory 

* Numbers xxi. 18. 



64 MOSES. 

over Sihon, and insults the helplessness of the gods 
of Moab: — 

" Come into Heshbon ! build and prepare 
The city of Sihon ! But fire blazes there ! 
A fire out of Heshbon, a flame lit by Sihon, 
Devours Ar of Moab, and the dwellers by Arnon ! 

" Wo to Heshbon ! O people of Chemosh forsaken, 

Your sons are in flight, and your daughters are taken ! 
We have shot them ! and Heshbon is waste far as Dibon, 
And Nophah is desolate hard by Medeba." * 

The king of Moab naturally distrusted the good- 
will of these formidable allies, who wrested back his 
cities from the conqueror to keep them for their own. 
The soothsayer Balaam f was called in to foil them 
by his incantations : but the very beast he rode re- 
proved him in human words ; his curses were turned 
to blessings in his mouth, and became a splendid 
prophetic ode, declaring the future fortune and 
strength of Israel, and the ruin of all the tribes 
that should league themselves against him. Of this 
prophecy the following passages dwelt long in the 
popular imagination, and had a powerful effect to 
the last in stimulating the hopeless struggle of the 
Jews against their oppressors : — 

* Numbers xxi. 27-30. 

t Balaam is the " Archimage " of later Jewish fancy, the type of 
hostility to Jehovah, and the perpetual adversary of Moses. His two 
sons, Jannes and Jambres, are magicians at Pharaoh's court, where 
they predict the birth of the wondrous child, and seek to compass his 
destruction ; they are afterwards foiled by him when they try to rival 
the wonders of his miraculous staff. Balaam is at length worsted and 
flung down to perish by Phinehas, with whom he wages a battle of 
enchantments in the air. 



BALAAM. 65 

Mine eyes shall see it, but not now. Afar 

In Jacob I behold the coming Star. 

From Israel a Sceptre shall arise 

That heavily shall smite his enemies. 

Moab is struck through temple and through crown, 

And all the sons of strife are beaten down ; 

Spoil of their foes shall Seir and Edom be, 

While Israel goes forth to victory. 

From Jacob cometh one whose conquering hand 

Destroys the remnant of the hostile land.* 

High was thy place, and haughty was thy neck, — 

At last forever fall'n, Amalek ! 

Strong was thy dwelling in thy rocky nest, 

O Kenite ! till by Asshur dispossest, — 

Thy sons a prey, thy land a wilderness : 

Alas ! and who shall live when God doeth this ? 

Armed ships 'gainst Asshur sail from Cyprus' shore ; 

Asshur and Eber then shall fall to rise no more ! 

The baffled king now sought to effect his purpose 
by a treacherous league with the desert tribe of 
Midian, and by tampering with the allegiance of the 
Hebrews. But by this time the vindictive and bloody 
temper of conquest was fully roused. The desert 
alliance was cut to pieces. Balaam himself was slain 
in the rout. The Moabites were compelled to a sul- 
len peace. The tribe of Midian was cut off to a 
man, and nothing spared but cattle for spoil, and 
the young girls for slaves. The command was given, 
that no quarter should be granted, and no mercy 
shown to any of the corrupted blood of the Canaan- 
ites, — a command impossible to be completely obeyed, 

* Numbers xxiv. 17-19. Composed, according to Bunsen, in the 
time of David; the succeeding verses (20-24) some centuries later. 

E 



66 MOSES. 

however frightful the carnage it set on foot ; and 
probably in itself an afterthought, it has been sug- 
gested,* when the nation came to feel the inconven- 
ience and peril of living among a half-subdued and 
exasperated population. Eager for the coveted prize 
that lay before them, and well united now in a hope 
just on the edge of fulfilment, the tribes encamped 
at the fords of the river Jordan. 

Then Moses, in his stern and vigorous old age of 
a hundred and twenty years, " his eye not dim, nor 
his natural force abated, . . went up from the plains 
of Moab to the mountain over against Jericho ; and 
Jehovah showed him all the land of Judah unto the 
utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the 
valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees ; and said, I 
have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou 
shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of 
Jehovah died there, in the land of Moab, according 
to Jehovah's word ; and he buried him in a valley iii 
that land ; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre 
unto this day." f 

The unfinished task of Moses was carried on by 
Joshua, whom he had already selected as the most 
competent leader. With a far narrower range of 

* Newman. See, hereafter, pages 73, 74. 

t Deut. xxxiv. Josephus relates that, " while he was still discours- 
ing, a cloud stood over him, and he disappeared in a certain valley ; 
although he wrote in the holy books that he died, out of fear lest they 
should venture to say, that because of his extraordinary virtue he went 
to God." For the divine honour in which Moses was held by the later 
Jews, and the extraordinary legends respecting his death, see Gfrorer, 
" Jahrhundert des Heils," Vol. II. 



CONQUEST OF CANAAN. 67 

character, Joshua had an equally stern and deter- 
mined will. His temper and his work were essen- 
tially warlike. His task was the vindictive and cruel 
business of conquest. The Canaanites were a numer- 
ous people, and highly civilized for that time. They 
dwelt in cities, and exercised the peaceable arts of 
life. Their equipment was of horses, and chariots 
of iron. They were formidable mainly from their 
numbers. Their seven nations were each more popu- 
lous (said later fame) than the twelve tribes of Is- 
rael.* The war with them was a war of race and 
religion ; to be effectual, it must be a war of exter- 
mination. The Hebrews must " smite them and ut- 
terly destroy them ; make no covenant with them, 
and show them no mercy, but destroy their altars, 
and break down their images, and cut down their 
groves, and burn their graven images with fire." 
Such were the savage and relentless terms of war- 
fare in that age : such were the conditions on which 
the Hebrew conquest could be secure, and the na- 
tional worship unmolested. 

It is needless to say, that the frightful task was 
never thoroughly done. But the records of the con- 
quest, and the laws of procedure enjoined for it, tell 
well enough the nature of such a struggle. Its jus- 
tification, if at all, is to be found in the event, where 
we seek the justification of all great historical facts : 
certainly not in the motive or temper of the con- 
querors. Neither the age nor the people was one 
to feel strong scruples. To the tribes of Israel it 
was a matter of spoil, and animosity of race. To 

* Deuteronomy vii. 2, 7. 



68 MOSES. 

their leaders it was a political, and (in the sense of 
that day) a religious necessity. Conquest was the 
only alternative besides going back to Egyptian 
bondage, or else wasting the people's life in the 
hazards of the wilderness, — conquest the more com- 
plete, the better. 

During the years of wandering, the Hebrews had 
dwelt among confederate and kindred tribes. The 
repulsed forces of the Shepherd dynasty made up 
(perhaps) those which they recognized as brother 
nations, Edom and Moab. They had kept on friendly 
terms with them, and sought their alliance always, 
and dealt with them, in the main, with desert cour- 
tesy. But these tribes were now jealous of their 
growing strength, and encroached on by their pres- 
ence. And so they were compelled to try their for- 
tune further, even though they had no design of it 
when they left the land of Egypt. Like the Franks 
in Europe, they were the last of a succession of con- 
quering hordes, and had to pass beyond the rest, to 
come at richer and remoter territories, which these 
had spared.* 

The indigenous tribes of Canaan had already, by 
this series of invasions, been crowded into the scanty 
region between the Jordan and the sea. This region 
was well defended, abounding in " cities fenced with 
high walls, gates, and bars, besides unwalled towns 
a great many." As the conquest went on, the in- 
vaders must spoil where they could not destroy, and 
cripple where they could not kill. Their own force 
was on foot, with the ruder outfit of swords, pikes, 

* This view, and the historical parallel, are suggested by Ewald. 



OCCUPATION OF CANAAN. 69 

slings, and bows ; and in their desperate warfare 
they could not acquire the training, or wield the 
more cumbrous armament, of the natives. The 
horse was a creature they feared and hated, from 
their Egyptian memories, and from the habits of 
their nomadic life ; and the genuine Israelite never 
to the last got the better of this fixed antipathy. 
Their savage practice was to slaughter their prisoners 
without mercy, hamstring the horses, and destroy 
the chariots with fire. 

They got slow and gradual possession of the land, 
seizing first the strongholds and forest-clad hills. 
They marked out the territory with boundaries for 
the several tribes, and spent five years in reducing 
it to submission. The proud clans Ephraim and 
Manasseh claimed a larger share, and complained 
that they could hold only the highlands, and were 
kept out of the populous valleys ; but Joshua an- 
swered scornfully, that if they were strong enough to 
make the larger claim, they must be strong enough 
to make it good ; and bade them go hew themselves 
a clearing in the forest (of men ?) that was round 
them. In their northern conquests, it is related, 
" every man they smote with the edge of the sword, 
until they had destroyed them, neither left they any 
to breathe." And so far were they from always 
asserting a religious motive, or commission, that, at 
a little later date, a party from the tribe of Dan fell 
treacherously upon the peaceable town of Laish, far 
to the north, massacred all the inhabitants, and then 
" set them up Micah's graven image, all the time that 
the house of God was in Shiloh." * 

* Judges xviii. 31. 



70 MOSES. 

But seen with the eyes of a grateful posterity, who 
could overlook the detail of its horrors in its national 
and religious benefits, this ferocious conquest, any 
more than the Exodus out of Egypt, was not without 
its traditionary marvels and its signal marks of spe- 
cial aid from God. The Jordan, overflowing its 
banks at harvest-time, had stopped its course, and 
left its channel dry for the invaders. The strong 
walls of Jericho had fallen at the people's shout and 
the blast of the priests' trumpet. Jehovah drove 
the inhabitants in terror before a swarm of hornets. 
If they suffered a momentary repulse at Ai, a mir- 
acle pointed out the guilty man whose crime had 
brought on the disaster. When five confederate 
kings had rallied the forces of the entire south for 
a last desperate resistance, " the sun stood still on 
Gibeon, and the moon in the vale of Ajalon," at 
Joshua's command, and " hasted not to go down for 
a whole day," till the hosts were put to rout; and 
even in their flight, a terrific hail-storm destroyed 
more of them than the Israelites had been able to 
slay. 

The head-quarters were removed, with the advanc- 
ing conquest, from Gilgal, over against Jericho, to 
Shiloh, in the heart of the land ; and here the sanc- 
tuary was fixed till quieter times should come. The 
" reproach of Egypt " had been taken off by the re- 
newal, or solemn adoption, of the Egyptian rite of 
circumcision. The national ordinances of feast-days 
and ceremonial came, we may suppose, into partial 
use. And though, from their inferior skill in mili- 
tary art and equipment, the victories of the Hebrews 
were but slow, and for generations they led a cam- 



THE CONQUEST. 71 

paign life among the rugged hills, and carried on a 
warfare of hasty assault or treachery, " like quaking 
islands in a stormy sea," — though, scattered as they 
were among hostile and populous communities, they 
had to come to terms with them, and so lost for a 
time their unity and strength, — still the central 
force was slowly organized, under Joshua the com- 
mander and Eleazar the priest; and a firm admin- 
istration of five and twenty years gave every pledge 
that the grand design of Moses would be accom- 
plished. 

With Joshua's death expires the latest gleam of 
this heroic age of the Hebrew history. Hitherto, 
the will and character of Moses had exercised, as it 
were, a personal control, and had guarded the unity 
of the chosen people. The last of that generation 
was now passed away. And here followed the inev- 
itable period of anarchy, disaster, violence, and mis- 
rule, which we know as the period of the Judges. 

The Conquest of Canaan, as we have now seen 
some of its leading incidents and features, was an 
event such as the historian becomes only too familiar 
with in the annals of mankind. It is equally un- 
worthy to attempt to justify its frightful atrocities by 
any maxims of ordinary or extraordinary ethics ; or, 
on the other hand, to make the master-spirit of this 
movement bear the guilt of them. Placed as he was 
for the guiding of a people so debased, he demands 
the allowance that should be made for their passions 
as he found them, and for the bloody morality of 
that age. Seen at this distance, and treated with a 



72 MOSES. 

generous historical criticism, the Hebrew conquest 
becomes one of the critical events of the world's his- 
tory ; and its consequences have immensely operated 
on the human race for good. It is when we come to 
see the difference between this and a multitude of 
other conquests, no more rapacious or sanguinary, 
but utterly powerless for any influence on mankind 
at large, — as the aggressions of Persia in Asia Minor, 
and the ravages of Attila or Genghis Khan, — that 
we discern where the greatness and glory of Moses lie. 
To no nation of antiquity are we more profoundly 
indebted than to the Hebrews. It is not too much to 
say, that they have fixed in the intellect of the world 
the type of the most exalted religious thought, and 
have thrown infinitely clearer light than all other 
races upon the problem of man's religious destiny. 
This was the providential mission of that race, 
wrought out through the twenty centuries of its 
history. And this most exalted mission, this noblest 
providential destiny, was confided in its germ to the 
fidelity of the man Moses, — a fidelity which through 
his whole long life endured every test. It was he who 
rescued that chosen people from the lot of vulgar 
conquerors, and won for them a title to the gratitude, 
and not the execration, of the world. "When the 
germs of their national character and faith became 
developed, and Israel was known as a strong and 
united people, it was his guiding thought, the august 
memory of his paramount and inspired greatness, 
that made their noblest heritage in the land to which 
he led them. 



III. THE JUDGES. 



FOR a generation or two after the Conquest under 
Joshua, there was going on " a silent revolu- 
tion, by the gradual absorption of the Canaanite 
populations into the name and sympathies of Is- 
rael."* In other words, that compromise which 
Moses and Joshua had dreaded, and sought to pre- 
vent by a religious war of extermination, did in fact 
take place. The Hebrew tribes had to a great degree 
lost their fierce nationality, and yielded to the looser 
customs and morals of the people among whom they 
lived. They were no longer " separated from all the 
people on the face of the earth." They " dwelt 
among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and 
Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites ; and they took 
their daughters to be their wives, and gave their 
daughters to their sons, and served their gods." f 

These coalitions, however plausible or even neces- 
sary then, were " generally reprobated by a distant 
posterity," who ascribed to them all the miseries of 
the time. From loyal and closely leagued invaders, 
the Israelites had become scattered and jealous local 
populations. Humiliated in war, deprived sometimes 
even of the arts of peace, distrustful of one another, 

* Newman, p. 23. t Judges iii. 5, 6. 

4 



74 THE JUDGES. 

and with nothing that could be called national spirit, 
or worship, or faith, or institutions, they underwent 
a long process of disintegration. Only scanty and 
doubtful recollections are preserved of the centuries 
that preceded the organizing of the Hebrew monar- 
chy by Samuel ; and these, in the warning words of 
the chronicler, marked that as the dismal time when 
" there was no king in Israel, but every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes." 

Unity of the tribe was the only unity that seems 
at all times to have been recognized. Independent 
groups or transient alliances were formed, as occa- 
sion urged, when neighbourhood of territory required 
some common right, or exposed to a common danger. 
Tolerably secure possession of the land, as against 
the old inhabitants, was almost the only positive gain 
as yet. This, though purchased at the price often of 
humiliation and disloyalty, did yet permit some roots 
of a native Hebrew culture to strike into the soil. 

Certainty of dates, and orderly sequence of events, 
are by no means to be looked for in the annals of 
such a time. Such chronology as we have is purely 
artificial and arbitrary. In the later history, we find 
the period of four hundred and eighty years assumed, 
as bridging the space between the march from Egypt 
and the building of the temple.* This is the earliest 
and simplest scheme. But different estimates of the 
same period vary as widely as from three hundred and 
twenty to near seven hundred and fifty years. Taking 
the first-mentioned, we have in it twelve divisions of 
forty years each, — the constant unit of time in the 

* 1 Kings vi. 11. 



SETTLEMENT OF THE TEIBES. 75 

Hebrew records. Deducting the times of Moses, 
Joshua, and David, there remain three hundred 
and sixty years for that disastrous period which 
closed with the nearly contemporary deaths of Sam- 
uel and of Saul. Then forty years may be assigned 
to each oT the nine heroic names.* 

We notice from the very first that cleavage in the 
structure of the Hebrew nationality, which resulted 
at last in the separation of the two kingdoms. Eph- 
raim and Judah appear as the heads respectively of 
the families of Rachel and Leah, Jacob's wives. 

Ephraim and Manasseh (heirs of the more fa- 
voured branch) at once claim pre-eminence on the 
soil of Canaan. Judah had led the march in the 
desert wandering, claiming the birthright of the elder 
race ; but " the sceptre departed from him, and 
the leader's staff from between his feet," when the 
sanctuary was fixed at Shiloh. Joseph, the favoured 
son, assumes the superior rank, and claims his 
double portion. Joshua, the great hero of the 
tribe of Ephraim, and thus the direct represent- 
ative of Joseph, chose his portion at Shiloh. The 
heart, and impregnable stronghold, and fairest re- 
gion of the land, belonged to the banded brothers. 
Only the rashness and arrogance of Ephraim pre- 
vented its maintaining a permanent ascendency. 
The intolerable temper of that tribe, manifested on 
several occasions, exposed it to the enmity of all the 
rest, — prefigured in the story of Joseph's treatment 

* Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah (Barak), Gideon, Jephthah, 
Samson, Eli, Samuel. Besides these, we find room, in broken inter- 
vals, for the names of Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elom, and Abdon. 



76 THE JUDGES. 

at his brothers' hands. The men of Ephraim men- 
aced the victorious Gideon, because he had not 
summoned them to the first onset against the Mid- 
ianites ; and were only turned aside by his adroit 
reply, " Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim 
better than the vintage of Abiezer ? " since they had 
done great slaughter in the pursuit. Assaulting 
Jephthah for the same cause of offended pride, they 
brought on that sanguinary feud, in which forty-two 
thousand of them were slain at the fords of Jordan, 
— known by the test-word Shibboleth ; for in their 
dialect it was Sibboleth, and " they could not frame 
to pronounce it right." 

Benjamin, the youngest and favourite in the legend, 
lay guarded, as it were, by Joseph's stronger arm. 
He occupied a territory small in space, but crowded 
with religious and heroic recollections ; the sacred 
Bethel lying on its northern frontier, and on the 
south the fortressed site of Moriah. Of all the 
tribes Benjamin was fiercest in war, and trained to 
the most skilful handling of sword and sling. These 
three make up the family of Rachel. 

Judah proudly claimed for his portion Hebron and 
the strong hill-country of the Amorites and giants in 
the south. Here Caleb, the compeer of Joshua in 
desert warfare and the conquest, held his own with a 
strong hand ; and Othniel his son-in-law, who had 
won the hero's daughter Achsah by his capture of a 
fortified town, received " the upper springs and the 
nether springs " for his portion, and became the first 
Judge, or Champion of Israel. " And Jehovah was 
with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the 



SETTLEMENT OF THE TRIBES. 77 

mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants 
of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." 
Simeon (whose force had been crippled by great 
losses in the perilous marches of the desert*) be- 
came a subordinate ally, and was gradually merged 
in the stronger tribe. So Judah became, from the 
first, to a good degree independent of the rest, secur- 
ing peace at times by separate treaties. His name is 
not once mentioned in the catalogue of the tribes 
given in the song of Deborah ; while the idyllic tale 
of Ruth seems to show the far greater quiet and se- 
curity that prevailed in this southern confederacy. 

The younger sons of Leah, Issachar and Zebulon, 
flanked thesp central portions towards the north; 
while those of less honourable descent, Naphtali, 
Dan, and Asher, lay on the remoter borders, where no 
local recollections pledged them to the national faith. 
Once, in time of imminent peril, Dan betook himself 
to his ships, as if for flight ; while Asher " continued 
by the shore, and lingered in his bays." The same 
recreant temper is stigmatized in the strain of 
Jacob's prophecy which applies to Issachar. 

East of the Jordan was a pasturing country, — 
the wide plains of Moab and Ammon stretching to- 
wards the desert and the Euphrates. This was the 
land of Gilead. Here dwelt, with uncertain bounda- 
ries, the nomadic tribes that would not part with 
the lawless freedom of the desert, — Reuben, Gad, 
and half of Manasseh, — who lived in tents long after 
the time of David. Gilead was peopled, said the 

* Of nearly forty thousand men, comparing Numbers i. 23 and 
xxvi. 14. 



78 THE JUDGES. 

western tribes, with their own runaways. There was 
always danger of their complete estrangement and 
separation from the rest. Once, hearing that they 
had built on that side " a great altar to see to," the 
other tribes were on the point of declaring war to 
compel their reluctant loyalty ; and were only paci- 
fied by the assurance that the altar was not for sacri- 
fice, but only as a memorial of the one God of Israel.* 
The Oracle or Prophecy ascribed to the dying 
Jacob may be taken as a Catalogue of the Tribes in 
their recent settlement. It thus becomes a link,, 
connecting the later history with the patriarchal or 
legendary memories, and is one of the most impor- 
tant monuments of the earliest perio<J of Hebrew 
literature. Its vivid portraiture of the tribes, and 
the equal eminence it assigns to the two great rivals, 
together with the disguised taunt of its appeal to the 
" sleeping lion " of Judah, seem to assign it to this 
portion of the history ; at any rate, to an age pre- 
ceding the monarchy.! 

ORACLE OF JACOB.]: 

Then Jacob called his sons to him, and thus the old man said : 
" Come near me now, and hear what shall befall when I am dead. 
Come, sons of Jacob, near me now ; about my death-bed gather, 
And hearken to the prophecy of Israel your father. 

* See Joshua, chap. xxii. ; Judges xii. 4 ; 2 Kings xiii. 5 ; 1 Chron. 
v. 10. 

t The contrast of its tone with that of a later period will be seen by 
comparing it with the "Oracle of Moses" (Deut. chap, xxxiii.), in 
which the tribal characteristics are mostly faded out ; especially with 
regard to the tribes of Levi and Benjamin. 

J Genesis xlix. 1 -28. 



ORACLE OF JACOB. 79 

" My first-born, Reuben, might of my young prime, — 

How like unstable water is it fled, 
Thy excellent dignity and power ! — his crime, 

To stain the honour of his father's bed. 

" Next, Simeon and Levi, — brothers they, — 

Sharp were their swords and instruments of death. 

My soul went not along their secret way, 
Nor of their plot mine honour reckoneth. 

In rage and violence a man they slay : 
As hamstrung oxen fall he perisheth. 

Cursed was the strife, — their bloody vengeance cursed : 

In Israel they are scattered and dispersed. 

" Thy brethren, Judah, shall give honour to thee : 

Thy hand shall smite their neck who do thee wrong. 
Thy father's children shall bow down before thee, 

Judah, my son ! thou lion young and strong ! 
Returning from the spoil, behold him where 
He couches, like a lion in his lair, — 
A Hon fierce, — to rouse him who shall dare ? 
From him the sceptre shall not pass away, 

Nor from his hand the staff of dignity, 
Till ye to Shiloh come, your place of rest ; 

There shall the gathering of the people be. 
Among the clustering grapes his foal he binds, 
His ass's colt beside the fruitful vines. 
Bathed are his garments in the wine-vat red, 
His robes in crimson that the grapes have bled. 
His teeth are whiter than new milk, and shine 
His eyes with brightness of the ruddy wine. 

" The home of Zebulon is by the sea : 

His dwelling near the haven of ships shall be : 

To Zidon he shall stretch his boundary. 

11 A sturdy Ass and strong is Issachar, 
Between two burdens bending. 



80 THE JUDGES. 

He saw that rest was sweet, — the land was fair ; 
He bowed his stubborn shoulder down to bear, — 
Service and tribute lending. 

" Dan rules — a judge — the tribes of Israel : 
Dan lurks — a serpent < — by the wayside wall, — 

A coiling snake that bites the horse's heel ; 
Eider and horse together backward fall. 

" Gad is a troop : a troop shall make him fly, 
But at the last he troops to victory. 

" Eich is the bread from Asher's fertile field, 
And royal dainties shall his harvests yield. 

" A slender fallow-deer is Naphtali : 
His is the gift of pleasant minstrelsy. 

" Joseph, — a fruitful tree beside a spring, 

Whose boughs above the garden wall expand ! 
By archers hated, hunted, hurt, — yet strong 

Bears he the bow ; strong is his arm and hand ! 
Stayed by the hands of Jacob's Mighty One, 
By Israel's Shepherd, and his Corner-Stone, 
Thy father's God who ever helpeth thee, 
The Almighty who shall bless and prosper thee, 
Thine are the blessings from the skies above, 
Thine are the blessings from the deeps below, 
The blessings of the breast and of the womb ! 
Thy father's benediction shall prevail 
Above the blessings of the eternal mountains, 
The glory of the everlasting hills ! 
Such blessings crown the exile Joseph's head, — 
His brow, who lone and far a slave was led ! 

"Last, Benjamin — a ravening Wolf — by day 
Devours the spoil ; at night divides the prey." 

Now these are all the brother tribes, twelve sons of Israel ; 
And thus their father spake to them ; he blessed and spake them 
well. 



LOSS OF NATIONALITY. 81 

So the twelve sons of Israel had their settlement 
in the land, — divided now, and estranged. Each 
secured as he best could his precarious footing on the 
soil he had got by the sword and must keep by the 
sword ; each forfeited more or less of the stern Israel- 
itish faith, securing the conditions of existence by 
more or less base terms of compromise. Very dis- 
united and disloyal were the tribes. Their distracted 
and humbled condition matched their recreant tem- 
per. In the days of Shamgar, — who, tradition said, 
slew six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad, i. e. at 
the head of a half-armed peasantry, — " there were 
no highways in Israel, and the travellers walked in 
by-ways." So deplorable was their position of de- 
pendence among the hostile populations, that at one 
time " there was no smith in Israel ; but they went 
down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his 
share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock." 
The proud tribe of Judah, which had even then 
withdrawn from the rest in a sullen and separate 
nationality, degraded itself so far as to deliver up 
bound the great champion Samson, on the Philis- 
tine summons, and to plead, as an excuse to its 
treachery, that they were masters of the land.* 

As an example of the temper of the time, and of 
the sudden animosities that now and then broke out 
among the tribes, the following is related. In re- 
venge for a shocking outrage done by a mob at 
Gibeah, the tribe of Benjamin had been almost 
wholly cut off by a combined assault, — all but a 
band of six hundred men, who held out in a sort of 

* Judges iii. 31, v. 6, xv. 11 ; 1 Samuel xiii. 19, 20. 



82 THE JUDGES. 

garrison. Then the people relented. They were 
struck with remorse that a tribe should perish ; but 
had taken an oath not to intermarry with them, and 
the Benjamite women had all been slain. To build 
up the lost tribe without violating a sacred pledge, 
their expedient was to massacre the inhabitants of a 
town that had not joined in their ferocious crusade 
and their oath, and to take the virgin captives as 
wives of the Benjamites ; then, to make good what 
was still wanting, they violently dragged off two 
hundred maidens, who came to join in some relig- 
ious festival at Shiloh.* 

The desperate struggle by which the land was won 
from its ancient masters was quickly over. Simi- 
larity of language and customs, and a nearer kinship 
of blood (doubtless) than the conquerors would 
acknowledge, brought the two races into something 
like amity. After the memorable defeat of the five 
allied kings in the vale of Ajalon, no powerful native 
leagues harassed the victorious people. Some, in- 
deed, clung obstinately to their ancient footholds, till 
exterminated long afterwards by Solomon, with aid 
from Egypt. Some, after the conquest, fled to Libya ; 
some withdrew to the coasts of Sidon. But in the 
main, Canaanite and Israelite seem to have coalesced. 
Distinctions of race were lost in intimate family 
alliances. Differences of faith were merged in com- 
munity of rites ; and the people of Jehovah were 
content to " serve Baalim and the groves." Old 
antipathies of blood were forgotten, in dangers that 
menaced all alike ; and the two populations made 

# Judges, chaps, xx., xxi. 



INVASION OF CANAAN. 83 

common cause against more formidable invaders, 
who came upon them from abroad.* 
Six such invasions are recounted. 

1. Cushan Bishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, held 
the land in subjection for eight years ; till Jehovah 
raised up Othniel, nephew and son-in-law of Caleb, 
as a deliverer. He drove out the invader, and gave 
the land rest for forty years. 

2. Next, Eglon, king of Moab, oppressed the 
Israelites for eighteen years ; till Ehud the Ben- 
jamite, a crafty, vigorous, left-handed man, being 
sent to carry the tribute, and pretending a secret 
message to the king, despatched him with a dagger, 
and proclaimed a rescue. 

3. Then, after a respite of eighty years (includ- 
ing Shamgar's championship), they were oppressed 
for twenty more, under the king of the north 
country, where the more compact force of the Phoe- 
nicians had tamed the valour of the frontier tribes. 
But the strong-hearted prophetess Deborah roused 
the people with her patriotic and impassioned ap- 
peals. In a great battle at Megiddo, near the brook 
Kishon (then swollen by the spring-freshets into a 
headlong torrent), Sisera was discomfited with all 
his host. His array of nine hundred chariots of 
iron was broken and dispersed. Sisera himself, 
fleeing away on foot, sought shelter in the tent of 
Heber the Kenite ; where Jael, Heber's wife, smote 
him in his sleep with a tent-pin through the brain, 
and nailed him dead to the ground. The fierce 

* " Kings of the provinces," or, as has been suggested, satraps of 
the new empire of Ninus. 



84 THE JUDGES. 

triumphant song of Deborah, — at once the earliest 
and finest specimen of the Hebrew ballad, — with its 
scorn of the coward tribes that would not come to 
the rescue, its exulting boast of the victory, and its 
pitiless sarcasm at the anguish of the mothers and 
families of the slain, presents by far the most vivid 
picture we have of the condition and temper of that 
time. 

SONG OF DEB OE AH.* 

There Sisera lay dead, and in his temples was the nail. 
So did our God make Israel's hand to prosper and prevail, 
Till Jabin, king of Canaan, was defeated utterly. 
Then Deborah and Barak sang this song of victory : — 

" Now Israel's champions are gone forth. Thank God, the people 

came! 
Hear, kings ! hear, princes ! while I sing Jehovah's mighty name. 

"Jehovah! when thou wentest forth from Seir, from Edom's 

plain, 
The earth did quake, the skies dropt dew, the clouds poured 

floods of rain ; 
The mountains melted from before Jehovah's awful face ; 
Yea, Sinai, when the God of Israel visited the place. 

" In the days of Shamgar, Anath's son, and Jael, all the highways 
"Were empty and forsaken, and the wanderers walked in by-ways. 
The gatherings of Israel ceased, — for sore the people feared, — 
Till I, a mother in the land, I, Deborah, appeared. 

" They had chosen them strange gods ; war at their gates was 

raging then ; 
No spear or shield was seen among their forty thousand men. 

* Judges, chap. v. 



SONG OF DEBORAH. 85 

" To you, O Israel's leaders ! turns my heart, — ye came so free ! 
Sing praises to Jehovah ! sing triumphantly with me ! 
Sing, ye that ride on asses white, and sit on vestments gay ; * 
And ye that walk secure, with none to harm you by the way ! 

" The voice of herdsmen, watering their cattle by the springs ! f 
Where the battle was most hotly fought the shout of victory 

rings ! 
The people of Jehovah were hard pressed ; but let them tell 
The goodness of Jehovah, — his good work for Israel ! 

" Arouse thee, Deborah ! awake ! sing the triumphal song ! 
Rise, Barak, son of Abinoam ! lead thy captive trains along ! 
A remnant fought the mighty ; but our God withstood the 
strong ! 

" First, Ephraim came, towards Amalek ; J next, Benjamin's 

trained bands ; 
Then Machir's § chiefs, and Zebulon's, with truncheons in their 

hands ; 
With Deborah followed Issachar, his captains and his men ; 
Issachar's footmen, — Barak led them down upon the plain. 

" By Reuben's brooks, brave words, grave looks ! why sit among 

your cattle ? 
To hear the shepherd's piping ? do ye fear the shout of battle ? 
Gad beyond Jordan with his sheep, Dan by his shipping stays ; 
Asher keeps snugly by the shore, and lingers in his bays. 
But Zebulon will jeopard his life, and so will Naphtali, 
Where death is deepest on the field, press forward dauntlessly ! 

" At Taanach, by Megiddo's stream, the kings of Canaan fought ; 
Fiercely they fought, yet found they not the booty that they 
sought. 

* The equipage of magistrates in Israel. 
t Herder's version. 

X A mountain in the territory of Ephraim. 
§ Manasseh. 



86 THE JUDGES. 

From heaven they fought ! Stars in their courses fought with 

Sisera ! 
Old Kishon's flood, — swift Kishon's flood, — it swept his host 

away ! 
O, then we smote and trampled down proud Canaan's men of 

might, 
And loud and fleet the horse-hoofs beat that sped their captain's 

flight ! 

" Curse ye Meroz, said God's angel then ; ay, curse the coward 

clan 
That came not to Jehovah's aid, that sent not spear nor man ! 

" But Jael, Heber's wife, above all women blessed be ! 

Of all the tribes that dwell in tents, no woman such as she ! 

He asked to drink: with brimming bowl the creamy milk she 

gave; 
Her left hand held the spike, — her right the heavy hammer 

drave! 
The hammer smote proud Sisera through the brain and through 

the head : 
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay ; at her feet he dropt down 

dead! 

" From her window cries his mother, — where the lattice half 

conceals, — 
* Why tarry my son's chariots ? why delay his chariot-wheels ? ' 
' Must they not then,' her ladies say, ' find and divide the prey ? 
Each man his captive maid or two ; rich robes for Sisera, — 
A prize of bright embroidered robes, fine wrought, with curious 

toil, — 
Richly embroidered, scarlet robes, the glory of the spoil ? ' 

" So perish all thine enemies, Jehovah ! but may those 
Who honour thee be like the sun when forth in strength he 
goes ! " 

So fell King Jabin's host that day. Our God from all our fears 
Delivered us, and Israel had rest for forty years. 



MIDIANITES. 87 

4. But a far more terrible assault was made by the 
predatory nations of the east and south. The Mid- 
ianites were a tribe long known in the desert-country, 
" half traders, half marauders, like the Carthagin- 
ians." It was a band of them that had carried Jo- 
seph as a slave to Egypt ; and among the later acts 
of Moses had been a desperate conflict with them, in 
which the bloody orders were, not to leave a male 
creature of them alive. They were a tribe not pow- 
erful in numbers, but formidable for alacrity and cun- 
ning. They had the skill to put themselves at the 
head of immense marauding parties of the roving 
populations of the desert ; and then their visitation 
was like that of a pestilence, or the terrible scourge 
of locusts. For seven years the country was deso- 
lated by such an invasion. " The Midianites came 
up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the East, 
and encamped against them, and destroyed the in- 
crease of the land, as far as [the seacoast at] Gaza ; 
and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor 
ox, nor ass ; for they came up with their cattle and 
their tents, like locust-swarms for multitude ; for both 
they and their camels were without number ; and 
they entered into the land to destroy it." If they 
gave such respite that the wretched inhabitants ven- 
tured to crawl out of " the dens of the mountains and 
caves and strongholds " where they hid themselves, 
and sow their fields, presently a fresh horde, with 
camels and horses, trampled through the land again, 
and devoured or trod to pieces the rising crop. 

Then Jehovah took pity at the cries of the dis- 
tressed and impoverished people, and called Gideon, 



88 THE JUDGES. 

of the tribe of Manasseh, to the rescue. He was Je- 
hovah's champion in a double sense : for, first, by a 
bold act of religious zeal, he destroyed the grove and 
altar of Baal, at Ophrah ; and then, at the head of 
three hundred trusty men, surprised the Midianite 
camp, and put their countless forces to rout. It 
was while he " threshed wheat by the wine-press, to 
hide it from the Midianites," and brooded on the he- 
roic memories of his people, and their present hu- 
miliation, that " Jehovah's messenger" came to him, 
and he received his commission as deliverer of Israel. 
His tempered and steadfast courage, unmoved by the 
elation or despondency of those about him, is strik- 
ingly symbolized by the " sign " given him, — that his 
fleece remained dry when a thick dew lay on all the 
ground, and was wringing wet when all the field 
around was dry. In four hard-fought battles he so 
utterly cut to pieces that Midianite alliance that it 
never afterwards menaced the Hebrew territory. His 
rich spoil of " golden ear-rings, ornaments and col- 
lars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of 
Midian, and chains that were on their camels' necks," 
he made into a sacred ephod, or breastplate, which at 
once attracted the eager superstition of the tribes. 
They would have made him king, but he said, " Not 
I or my son, but Jehovah, shall rule over you ; " and 
accepted only their spontaneous obedience as judge, 
— by far the greatest of that line before Samuel. 

Of his sons, the worst of all, the base-born Abime- 
lech, prevailed so far on the general gratitude to his 
father's memory as to slay sixty-nine of his seventy 
brothers, and to make a premature and tyrannous dis- 



JEPHTHAH. 89 

play of royalty ; but this was speedily overthrown. 
Jotham's fable of the trees in council to choose a 
king, and the absurd pretensions of a bramble-bush 
when fruit and forest-tree had declined the dignity, 
is the most notable relic of that abortive monarchy. 
The victories of Gideon had given rest to the land 
for another term of forty years. 

5. Next, the eastern tribes beyond the Jordan suf- 
fered for many years by the invasion of the Ammon- 
ites, from the northeast country near Damascus. 
Ammon, in the patriarchal genealogy, is the son of 
Lot, and younger brother of Moab, — that is to say, 
a feebler tribe, or one unknown to Israel till a later 
day. The nomade tribes of Gad and Reuben doubt- 
less encroached on the undefined territory of Am- 
mon ; and the source of quarrel, as would seem from 
the curious parley before battle, was traced back to 
the time when Moses drove off the Amorites and 
seized the land. " Ye have forsaken me and served 
other gods," said Jehovah to the Israelites, when they 
cried for mercy, " and I will deliver you no more. 
Go, cry to the gods ye have chosen : let them deliver 
you in the time of your distress." But he relented 
when they confessed their sin ; " his soul was grieved 
for the misery of Israel ; " and while they encamped 
in Mizpeh a new champion appeared. 

Jephthah the Gileadite had been an outlaw and a 
refugee ; but his townsmen were glad to claim his 
prowess when their turn of misery came, and to take 
a strict oath of fidelity to him as their chief. Then 
" the spirit of Jehovah came upon Jephthah, and he 
drove back the invaders with a very great slaughter, 



90 THE JUDGES. 

and smote twenty of their cities." And as he re- 
turned, his daughter, his only child, came out to 
meet him with timbrels and dances, singing with her 
companions his song of victory, after the manner 
of the time. But he had made the horrid vow, to 
sacrifice as a. burnt offering whoever should first 
" come forth out of the doors of his house to meet 
him when he should return in peace," — trusting, 
doubtless, that it would be the cheaper ransom of a 
clansman or a slave. To his jealous divinity he 
durst not deny the offering, but " did with her ac- 
cording to his vow." Exulting still that at least her 
death had purchased her father's victory, the brave 
girl accepted her fate ; only bewailing, that, maiden 
as she was, none should live after her to share his 
name and lineage.* 

6. More formidable and obstinate than all the rest 
was the hostility which Israel now encountered from 
the Philistines. These (to trust a plausible hypoth- 
esis) were of an eastern race that had migrated 
in former times from Canaan to Crete, where they 
learned the Hellenic or Pelasgic arts and manners 
of the time, and lost something of their native cus- 
toms. They were an uncircumcised people, like the 
Greeks ; and worshipped not Baal, or the Sun, but 
Dagon, or the Sea, — as in allusion to their double 
migration.f But the tie of blood was strong. The 

* The language of the narrative, borne out by all we know of the 
time and people, affords no pretext for withholding the darkest inter- 
pretation of this act, in spite of the natural anxiety of critics to make 
out a better case for the Gileadite chieftain. Compare Sophocles, An- 
tigone, 814-816,916-920. Euripides, Hecuba, 416. 

f As likely, perhaps, as any interpretation of the myth, that their 



PHILISTINES. 91 

memory of the Jordan was preserved in the name of 
a Cretan river ; * and, when occasion summoned, they 
came back to the coasts of Canaan, — perhaps (to 
judge from some obscure hints in our narrative f) to 
the rescue of the Avims when hard pressed by the Is- 
raelite conquest, — like the Saxons, subjugating and 
ruling those they came to serve. Grecian legend J 
said that Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, had ex- 
pelled from Crete a barbarous tribe which took refuge 
in Asia, — probably a portion of the old Shepherd 
race, — and these may have been identical with the 
Philistines. They occupied the sea-coast with their 
five strong cities, — Gaza, Ashdod, Askalon, Gath, 
and Ekron. Their trade gave them enterprise and 
knowledge of foreign arts ; and, as the best known 
of all the Canaanite inhabitants to other maritime na- 
tions, they gave the name of Palestine to the entire 
region. § 

As a seafaring and trading nation, their policy 
was peace. Some of the Hebrews, and especially 
the tribe of Judah, were not sorry to take advantage 
of their superior skill in the arts, even at the cost 
of subjugation and tribute. But either the ferocity 
of the earlier conquest had created an inexpiable 
feud, or else the Philistines followed up the design 

tutelar goddess had changed herself to a fish. Their name has been 
interpreted as signifying " wanderer/' See Movers, " Die Phonizer," 
Vol. I. Some ancient relation with Egypt is indicated in Genesis x. 14. 

* fjxi Kvba>V€S evatov, 'laphavov djicjA pecBpa. Odyss. III. 292. 

t Compare Deuteronomy ii. 23 ; Joshua xiii. 3. 

J Herodotus, I. 173. 

§ Pococke (" India in Greece ") says that the true name is Pali-stan, 
or Shepherd-land, and is of Sanscrit derivation. 



92 THE JUDGES. 

of crowding steadily on the Hebrews, so as to win 
back the whole territory in their turn. The region 
they now occupied was already claimed by Simeon 
and Dan ; and conflicting titles admitted no lasting 
peace. Until the realm was settled by the strong 
and skilful hand of David, the annals record only 
the various fortunes of one long campaign. And 
even then, the Cherethites and Pelethites of his body- 
guard recalled in these designations the name of the 
island from which their fathers came, and the title 
of their independent nationality.* 

The memories of this long warfare are among the 
most heroic of the Hebrew History. It was the Phil- 
istines of whom Shamgar slew six hundred with no 
more formidable weapon than an ox-goad. They 
were among the enemies who harassed the land be- 
fore the Ammonite victories of the Gileadite Jeph- 
thah. Before the ark of Jehovah, their fish-idol, 
Dagon, had twice fallen in unwilling homage, and 
was maimed and broken on the threshold of his own 
temple. By a great victory over them, Samuel re- 
vived the expiring nationality of Israel. And, in a 
later time, their giant champion, Goliath of Gath, fell 
by the sling and smooth stone wielded by a smooth- 
faced shepherd-boy. 

But the great hero of the Hebrew people in their 
struggle against the Philistines was Samson, of the 
tribe of Dan. Marvels were told of his birth and 
his prodigies of strength. An angel had announced 
his coming ; and, for a sign to confirm their faith, 
his parents' sacrifice flamed of itself upon the rock, 

* See Winer, art. " Crethi." 



SAMSON. 93 

and the angel ascended to heaven in the flame. He 
was bound, from his childhood, by the Nazarite vow 
not to drink wine or suffer the hair of his head to be 
cut. Going down to Timnah, to his bridal, he rent 
with his hands, unarmed, a lion that roared at him 
on his way ; and to pay the forfeit of his wager, that 
the bridal guests should not answer his riddle, he 
slew thirty men of Askalon, and brought their gar- 
ments to their countrymen. When his bride was 
given to another man, he revenged himself by send- 
ing three hundred jackals, with firebrands at their 
tails, into the enemy's standing corn. When the 
men of Judah had basely given him up, bound " with 
two new cords," rather than break peace with " the 
masters of their land," and in their deriding triumph 
" the Philistines shouted against him, — the Spirit of 
Jehovah came mightily upon him, and the cords that 
were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt 
with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands ; 
and he found a new jaw-bone of an ass, and put 
forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men 
therewith ! " Being shut up at night in the town 
of Gaza, he burst through the city gates, " and went 
away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his 
shoulders, and carried them to the top of an hill 
that looks towards Hebron." And when at last he 
had weakly surrendered his secret to the traitress 
Delilah, and was shorn of his locks and blinded, and 
made to grind in the prison-house, — a task for a 
woman-slave, — and taken to make sport on a feast- 
day for the Philistines by the exhibition of his return- 
ing strength, with one bitter prayer " to be revenged 



94 THE JUDGES. 

on them for his two eyes," he bowed himself upon 
the pillars of the house where they were assembled, 
and crushed the whole multitude of two thousand 
beneath its ruins. " So the dead which he slew at 
his death were more than they which he slew in his 
life." 

These are the last of the heroic recollections of 
that long period of the Judges. With fond exaggera- 
tion they are thus dwelt upon and magnified, as a 
relief to the deep humiliation of almost perpetual 
defeat. Samson was the hero of the people. The 
tales of his prodigious strength are set off with the 
jesting humour and ready wit that befit a man of the 
people. His dissolute morals, that put him again 
and again in his enemies' power, were such as the 
popular temper easily forgives ; while the rude val- 
our, and the levity that turned these chances to their 
mischief, were a grateful retaliation for their success. 
In the favourite style of popular tales of prowess, one 
man is pitched against a nation or an army ; and as 
in a later generation the entire host is said to trem- 
ble and flee before Goliath, to magnify the youthful 
intrepidity of David, so (they were eager to tell) the 
whole Philistine people were kept in terror by the 
single arm of Samson. He was backed by no Israel- 
ite force. He had no authority with the people at 
large. He was an adventurer and an outlaw, — 
scarce known beyond his tribe of Dan, and surren- 
dered to Philistine vengeance by the treachery of his 
countrymen who chose to remain at peace. In his 
strange history, standing thus as he did alone and 
unrelieved, we have the clearest illustration of the 



PKOPHECY AND SONG. 95 

disorganized condition into which Israel was now 
fallen, — a condition scarcely known to us, except 
from the revolting incidents that disfigure the close 
of the Book of Judges. 

But during these centuries of humiliation, and the 
dissolution of the bond of ancient loyalty, a spirit 
had nevertheless been growing up, destined, under 
able guidance, to work the regeneration of the He- 
brew people. The Prophetic gift — which, as under- 
stood among the Hebrews, is a blending of religious 
and poetic fervour with the power of addressing ef- 
fectively the popular mind — has been justly regarded 
as a distinguishing characteristic of this race. If not 
in its elements, religious, intellectual, or moral, at 
least in its quality, and its preponderating influence 
on the social destinies of the nation, it is here with- 
out a parallel in history. How deep is the religious 
colouring of all Hebrew thought — whether historic, 
poetic, martial, or meditative — there is no need of 
insisting here. In these times that gift did not lie 
waste. Save the few scraps and fragments of popular 
song which may be plausibly referred to the time of 
the Conquest, the earliest passages of Hebrew litera- 
ture bear the clear impress of this age. A later gen- 
eration was hardly likely to reproduce the vivid feel- 
ing of the Song of Deborah, or to retain the sharp 
characterizing of the tribes in the Oracle of Jacob. 
The first fragmentary outlines of the patriarchal his- 
tory, and the national Passover Ode which bears the 
name of Moses, are likewise, with some show of prob- 
ability, conceived as belonging to this period. If so, 
the popular mind was far from being stagnant during 



96 THE JUDGES. 

those long passages of time which to the history are 
an utter blank. 

Then there were other traits, or popular habits, 
which aided in preparing for the larger development 
of Hebrew life that was in store. Popular music, of 
a rude yet stirring and effective character, was prac- 
tised on all festive or state occasions. The timbrel 
and dance and enthusiastic song were part of the 
most ancient inheritance of the race. And it was a 
generous trait, distinguishing this from most Oriental 
nations, that women claimed a share, freely yielded 
them, in all matters of public interest ; and were 
often the controlling or saving power in great emer- 
gencies of the state. Miriam and Deborah, the 
daughter of Jephthah and the mother of Samuel, 
are instances which show how freely and heartily 
the influence of women entered, as one of the motive 
powers of the Hebrew commonwealth ; * and how 
the freedom of their position was often met with a 
respect and delicacy too infrequent in the life of 
ancient nations. As has been aptly said,f the writ- 
ten history of this period is the narrative of its dis- 
eases. The unwritten history, as we can here and 
there construct it, is by no means without its marks 
of vigorous health. At first glance, we see only bar- 
barism and misrule everywhere ; but presently traces 
appear of a genuine popular culture, native to the 
blood and rooted in the soil. 

* The "wise woman" (2 Sam. xx. 16), who pledges herself to 
Joab for the surrender of Maachah, is probably an example of this elder 
Hebrew spirit, lingering in that remote border-district, when a central- 
izing monarchy had altered the habits of the more southern region. 

t Kitto. 



RELIGIOUS FEELING. 97 

Misfortune and defeat, to judge from our meagre 
chronicle, were always an effectual summons to the 
people's conscience. Recreant and superstitious they 
might be ; but they never lost the conviction that 
Jehovah was their nation's God, — a conviction truly 
inestimable, when the later prophetic spirit could 
assume it as the groundwork of a still loftier appeal. 
The fault was, that with servile and cruel super- 
stition they sought to propitiate the gods of other 
nations too. When these failed them, as was evident 
in a season of defeat, they came back with ready 
zeal to the service of their own. The cause of the 
Hebrew faith, in such an age, was alike the cause of 
religion, morals, and humanity.* That Jehovah was 
regarded as & jealous God, — using the strong term 
that denotes the temper in which an Oriental hus- 
band guards and avenges the honour of his wife, — 
had at least this good effect, that it was a standing 
appeal to the nation's loyalty, or sense of duty. 
How the image was carried out is familiar through 
the writings of the later prophet s.f And though, to 
their mind, he was far from being the Infinite God 
of Philosophy, or the Spiritual Father of Christianity, 
yet the ethical conditions of the purer and loftier 
conception were already found, in the Hebrews' faith 
towards Jehovah, the God of their Fathers, who ever 
was and is the same. 

The revival of religious loyalty, after the deep de- 
pression of the national character, had already begun 
to manifest itself in the growing consequence of the 
priesthood. The germ of what we call the Mosaic 

* Newman. Especially Hosea. 

5 G 



98 THE JUDGES. 

Institutions was striking root and taking shape. 
Companies of priests became proprietors of towns 
and districts, — as we see in the example of Nob, 
— carrying out to some extent the theory of the 
forty-eight Levitical cities : and there were sacred 
places of authentic and solemn worship, especially 
where the " ark of God " was, in Shiloh. 

Eli, at once Judge and High Priest, represents 
this period. Of his long magistracy — " he had 
judged Israel forty years " — we know only the 
sorrowful and shameful close. In his youth he may 
have been a stout champion against the public en- 
emy, — since by some stroke of successful valour the 
authority of that position was generally won ; but in 
his old age it is only as the official guardian of the 
sanctuary that we know him, while his profligate 
sons abuse their delegated power, and tamper pro- 
fanely with the sacred things. The abused and 
decrepit administration came to a tragical end. 
Being worsted in battle with the Philistines, Hophni 
and Phinehas brought the holy ark, the most sacred 
deposit in the sanctuary, to the Hebrew camp ; trust- 
ing either to its magical efficacy, or else to the su- 
perstitious feeling it might stimulate on both sides. 
The Philistines rallied from their first terror. The 
battle was speedily decided. The ark was taken ; 
Hophni and Phinehas were slain ; and their wretched 
father, at the news, fell back from his seat and died. 

The sanctuary at Shiloh had been captured and 
destroyed, it would seem, as one of the results of 
this disaster ; and for twenty years we hear of 
nothing but the people's deeper humiliation. It 



SAMUEL. 99 

was relieved in part by the restoring of the ark to 
Hebrew soil ; for in an hour of religious terror the 
Philistines had sent it back with peace-offerings. A 
sacred deposit (according to the ancient feeling) 
must work either good or harm. They believed in 
its mysterious powers, most likely, full as much as 
the Hebrews. A troublesome epidemic, and a plague 
of field-mice were ascribed to the captured ark. 
Nay, when it was restored, seventy men of Beth- 
shemesh, it was said, — our account even gives it 
with the enormous addition of fifty thousand, — 
were struck dead in that one village for looking 
into it.* 

But in these twenty years " the child Samuel " 
had grown to manhood. Upon him all the hopes 
of the people gradually came to be gathered. His 
mother's affectionate and watchful piety had devoted 
his life from infancy to the temple-service. And that 
early consecration, made only the more intense by 
the dissolute example of Eli's sons, was now ripened 
to the stern spirit of self-consecration which fitted 
him for the great work of the regeneration of Israel. 
With the reluctance of a noble and clear mind, that 
measures its strength against the magnitude of an 
almost hopeless task, yet with a resolute will, that 
never wavered or relaxed in what it had once under- 
taken, he accepted the commission which Providence 
as it were compelled upon him, — to be the Deliverer 
of his people in a far larger sense than they were 
ready to conceive. 

For, as Moses was the founder, Samuel was the 

* 1 Samuel vi. 19. 



100 THE JUDGES. 

restorer of the Hebrew character and institutions. 
His is next in the line of sacred and illustrious names. 
He is second to Moses alone in that austere dignity 
which after ages associate with his memory ; and is 
represented to be as nearly as possible his equal in 
the decisive acts which show his authority and power. 
Fond tradition related him to have been the watched 
and guarded favorite of heaven from a child ; brought 
up in tliQ temple-service ; charged in the night-visions 
with the terrible message of doom to the guilty 
family of Eli. When " the word of Jehovah was 
precious, and there was no open vision," the pro- 
phetic spirit fell on Samuel. "Jehovah was with him, 
and did let none of his words fall to the ground ; 
and all Israel, from Dan even unto Beersheba, knew 
that he was established to be a prophet of Jehovah." 

He now called a gathering of the people at Mizpeh, 
near his native Ramah, and "judged them there." 
When the Philistines mustered a great host, to crush 
(as they had so often done before) this germ of rising 
nationality, " Jehovah thundered with a great thun- 
der upon them, and discomfited them, and they were 
smitten before Israel ; " and Samuel set up a stone 
for a trophy, " and called its name Eben-ezer, saying, 
Hitherto hath Jehovah helped us." 

This timely victory — the first for many years, 
and by far the most important in its consequences 
since the days of Joshua — at once confirmed the 
authority of Samuel as chief of Israel. Loyal tra- 
dition even magnified* his services, by adding, that 
" the Philistines came no more into the coast of 
Israel ; and the hand of Jehovah was against them 



SAMUEL. 101 

all the days of Samuel," — a statement sufficiently 
contradicted by their garrisons, which we find shortly 
after almost as far eastward as the Jordan. But 
his personal supremacy was not questioned ; and 
though for near twenty years contemporary with the 
king whom the people compelled him to appoint, 
" Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life." 

It is not so much in the acts as in the effects of 
his administration that we perceive the extraordinary 
vigour and power of the man. He breathed into the 
soul of the Israelite people the forgotten hope of 
being really masters of their own soil. He revived 
in them the conception of Hebrew institutions on the 
basis of national independence. He inspired that 
hopeful and resolute intrepidity which was for them 
the condition of developing their own life and of 
fulfilling their providential mission as a people. So 
that what was said falsely of him as history was 
spoken truly as prophecy ; for, in result if not in 
immediate act, he did found and secure the free 
commonwealth of Israel. 

Necessarily, from the genius of the Hebrew mind 
and institutions, and of an age when no other than 
a theocratic civilization could be so much as thought 
of, the basis he sought for the national life was a 
religious basis. He seems to have entertained the 
magnificent but impracticable conception, that the 
real, acknowledged sovereign of Israel should be the 
invisible Divinity and Protector, whose arm had 
guarded the nation in so many perils, whose spirit 
had from the first commissioned and inspired its 
faithful men ; and that the actual ruler should be 



102 THE JUDGES. 

only as it were a Regent, or Viceroy, of this unseen 
Sovereign. How greatly he was disappointed, when 
not only the people craved, but the exigencies of the 
time and his own sons' recreancy demanded, a human 
king to lead in battle and wield the executive force 
of the state, the after history shows. The almost 
fierce severity of the treatment he exercised in his 
old age toward Saul (as related in the two accounts 
of his alienation from him) is best explained from 
this failure of his loftiest ideal, and the forced sur- 
render of his cherished hope. 

One inestimable and lasting service Samuel ren- 
dered to the Hebrew people, by which he has won 
the gratitude of all the world. He, more than any 
other man, was the father of the long line of Hebrew 
prophets. The office of Moses, indeed, in the rever- 
ent view of a late posterity, finally resolved itself into 
that of a prophet, — a conception so strikingly pre- 
sented in the book of Deuteronomy; but his true 
work was too complicated and peculiar to admit so 
definite a title. The prophetic mantle had fallen on 
Miriam and on Deborah, to the enduring glory of 
Hebrew womanhood ; and special messengers, charged 
with special warnings, appear here and there on the 
page of the scanty annals. But under Samuel proph- 
ecy first became (so to speak) a Hebrew institution 
and a fixed fact. Not hereditary, like the priesthood, 
or of man's appointment, as any magistrate's func- 
tion, it depended essentially on a divine call, and on 
the moral aptitude of a man's soul. Institutions 
could only guide, train, instruct, and put to actual 
service, the spirit which came by its own laws, free 



THE JUDGESHIP. 



103 



as the unfettered wind. The " Schools of the Proph- 
ets," with their music strangely fascinating, and their 
sacred discipline, their gathering and concentrating 
of the fresh religious zeal there might be in the body 
of the people, were of Samuel's foundation. This 
institution of prophecy, — the fountain-head of the 
world's noblest poetry, and in after times the bold 
protest against tyranny, the altar-fire of the nation's 
faith, the sacred hearth and shrine of a hope whose 
destined fulfilment was in one who should be the 
world's spiritual Sovereign, and the Prince of Peace, 
— is the magnificent legacy bequeathed to Humanity 
by the great restorer of the Hebrew faith. 

But while labouring thus effectively, and with so 
large a hope, for the remote future, the mind of Sam- 
uel was perplexed by present and pressing anxieties. 
The office of Judge had no self-sustaining dignity. 
Its multitude of cares could not be shared among 
subordinates. Such power as it had could never be 
a delegated power. It rested solely on a man's per- 
sonal influence, and on the generally felt conviction 
of his Divine commission or his personal superiority. 
Its truest basis, as well as its noblest representative, 
it had in Samuel ; and the failure, with all his com- 
manding qualities, served to show that the office was 
no longer suited to the public need. The theocracy 
had been a fact with Moses ; with Samuel it was 
only a reminiscence and a hope ; as with the later 
prophets a splendid dream. 

It was a heavy grief for the heroic and faithful 
Judge, when the conviction compelled itself upon 
him, that one more radical change must be made in 



104 THE JUDGES. 

the government of the state ; that the invisible King 
with human regents was not such a sovereign as the 
state demanded ; that the grand hope and noblest 
ambition of his life had, as it were, failed. But the 
notorious incompetency of his own sons (to whom 
he intrusted the administration of the southern bor- 
der), the loud complaints of the people, which he 
was wholly unable to control, and, above all, another 
invasion pressing from the Ammonites on the north- 
east, opened his eyes at length to the unwelcome 
truth. The vision of a theocratic Republic had 
proved delusive. The name and traditionary pres- 
tige of royalty must be bestowed on the most com- 
petent man ; or else the very first object of his con- 
cern — the independence of the state itself — was 
forfeited. 

However clear and imperative the necessity, Sam- 
uel did not accept it without a struggle. The pain- 
ful vacillation of his mind is curiously reflected in 
the varying statements of the narrative. By one 
account, he vehemently reproached the people with 
disloyalty to Jehovah, warning them at much length 
of the bitter fruits of despotism ; and would grant 
their petition only at the express command of God, 
who took that method of chastising them for their 
guilt. By another account, he saw the need at once, 
selected a candidate with every mark of confidence 
and good-will, and inaugurated the new dynasty with 
elated hope, and was only driven into opposition by 
the long-proved unworthiness of Saul.* 

Whatever may have been Samuel's sincere reluc- 

* 1 Samuel, chaps, viii., x. 



SAUL. 105 

tance or apprehension, the people's urgency and the 
impending peril of the state at length prevailed. 
Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, was anointed 
king. The reasons of policy which influenced the 
choice were these : The tribe of Benjamin was small, 
but valiant. Its territory lay near the seat of Sam- 
uel's regency, and abounded in sacred localities. A 
choice from this tribe avoided the resentment that 
might be felt at the sullen isolation of Judah, or the 
intolerable arrogance of Ephraim, as well as their 
more formidable jealousy of each other. These rea- 
sons were fully justified by the feud which, a century 
later, alienated the ten tribes from the house of Da- 
vid ; though the personal ascendency of the two great 
kings had long reconciled the nation at large to the 
hated supremacy of Judah. 

In many personal qualities, too, Saul amply vindi- 
cated Samuel's choice. A stately and commanding 
presence, and prompt vigour in action, were enough 
to win at once the popular admiration. His politic 
magnanimity put a stop to the proposal, started upon 
his first victory, to take vengeance on such as chose 
to sneer at their rustic prince. His domestic char- 
acter was far more exemplary than that of any other 
of the earlier kings : but one wife of his is men- 
tioned, and one of inferior rank, whom he may have 
taken after her death, — a striking contrast to the 
loose polygamy of David and his successors. The 
personal attachment towards him was in some quar- 
ters so strong that the men of Gilead risked their 
lives to give him honorable burial ; and more than 
half the nation clung obstinately to the fortunes 

5 * 



106 THE JUDGES. 

of his son till repelled by his own hopeless inca- 
pacity. 

At first, too, Saul seems to have heartily co-operated 
with the religious party. He built altars to Jeho- 
vah, and was once even among the company of the 
prophets. It was only at a later date that the fatal 
and implacable feud broke out which cost the realm 
so many sorrows, and himself his crown and his life, 
— a feud which bred the characteristic suspicion that 
Jehovah had selected him on purpose to punish the 
people for their infidelity in demanding a king, and 
had repented of it afterwards.* 

For the future, Samuel must be, not the nominal 
head, but only the chief adviser, in public affairs. 
His presence was a reminiscence of the departed or 
imagined Theocracy which never had been and never 
could be fully realized. He was the representative 
or embodiment of the spiritual power, which, with 
boundaries as yet unsettled by any just theory, or 
implied in the prescriptions of experience, sought 
such terms with the temporal power, and exerted 
such independent jurisdiction, as from the nature 
of the case it could. 

Saul's personal prowess and promptness of enter- 
prise were manifest in the exigency that first called 
him to the actual leadership. The Ammonite chief 
Nahash had summoned the beleaguered town of Ja- 
besh Gilead to surrender, — menacing its people, that 
even as his slaves he would only accept them aftei 
blinding them of the right eye, so as to unfit them 
for war ; and scornfully gave them leave to get what- 

* See 1 Samuel, chap. xii. ; xiv. 35 ; xv. 35. 



MILITARY ACTS OF SAUL. 107 

ever aid they could from the distracted and helpless 
state of Israel. The tidings came to Saul as he was 
with a yoke of oxen in the field. At the word, " he 
took the oxen and hewed them in pieces, and sent 
them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands 
of his messengers, saying, Whosoever cometh not 
forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done 
to his oxen." With his suddenly mustered force he 
gained so complete a victory, that " not two of the 
enemy were left together." He relieved the dis- 
tressed city ; and with the welcome of popular en- 
thusiasm was solemnly crowned king in the ancient 
sacred town of Gilgal. 

As a permanent means of national defence, Saul 
organized, within two years, the nucleus of a stand- 
ing army, — a small regular force of three thousand 
men. For " there was sore war against the Philis- 
tines all the days of Saul ; and when Saul saw any 
strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto 
him." Then began that career of romantic adven- 
ture, of brilliant partial success or ignoble failure, 
of popular terror or exultation, which made memo- 
rable the early valour of Jonathan and the chivalrous 
exploits of David. The Philistine garrisons, far in 
the interior of the country, struck such dismay that 
the people retreated once more to the mountain re- 
cesses ; and " did hide themselves in caves and in 
thickets and in rocks and in high places and in 
pits ; and some of the Hebrews went over Jordan 
to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he 
was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him 
trembling." The presence of a foreign ruler is 



108 THE JUDGES. 

doubtless a sorer thing in a war for independence 
when he comes as an armed enemy, than when there 
is peaceable tax-paying and non-resistance. But in- 
dependence was the very thing Saul had been chosen 
to secure, and the people must not complain of the 
needful severity of the terms. 

Change of habit and intoxication of power, coming 
so suddenly upon a grown-up man of rustic train- 
ing, might well unsettle a larger intellect and more 
balanced character than Saul's. Vigorous and able 
in the stress of war, he seems to have been quite 
unfit for civil administration. Samuel, as became 
but too apparent, had been unfortunate, or else at 
fault, in selecting a man whose narrowness of mind 
made him at once unfit for any large responsibility, 
and jealous of superior ability in others. A breach 
began, and was fast widening, between the incompe- 
tent king and the adviser to whom he had been at- 
tached at first by every motive of gratitude and 
respect. Saul became moody and suspicious. His 
jealous, brooding temper was subject to fits of mor- 
bid melancholy, amounting at times to madness. 
" The spirit of Jehovah was departed from Saul, 
and an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him." 
How David, " the sweet singer of Israel," soothed 
him with harp and song ; and how Saul at first loved 
him as a son, and made him his man-at-arms, and 
then was jealous of his prowess, and sought to kill 
him unless prevented by Jonathan's vigilant love, 
and twice repented, with fitful nobleness of spirit, 
when he found David had spared his life, is told 
in that most varied and romantic narrative of Scrip- 



SAMUEL AND SAUL. 109 

ture biography which bears the name of Samuel. 
The few scattered incidents of the king's career are 
only interspersed among the personal adventures of 
him who was the true representative man of the time, 
and the real founder of the Hebrew monarchy. 

For several years the aged prophet and the wrong- 
headed king had kept such uncertain alliance as 
they might. Samuel retained to the last his strong 
personal ascendency. In the course of time he had 
withdrawn his confidence from Saul ; and at length, 
it is related, he carried his resentment to the open 
act of nominating an antagonist king to seize his 
place under the auspices of the priesthood. A deed 
so fatal as this to the peace and integrity of the king- 
dom was not at any rate publicly committed ; though 
Samuel, by the symbolic act of consecration, may 
have declared how fondly his hope for Israel rested 
on the minstrel-boy, — probably his own pupil in the 
school of sacred minstrelsy, — the youngest son of 
Jesse. The later undisguised antagonism of king 
and prophet is referred by one account to a sacri- 
fice which Saul offered when Samuel came not at 
the appointed time ; and by another to his sparing 
the spoil of the Amalekites and their king Agag, 
whom Samuel thereupon " hewed in pieces before 
the face of Jehovah ; " for it was a sacred war, a war 
of extermination, and in it there must be no booty.* 
Whatever the cause, it had now led to open rupture. 

The quarrel involved not Samuel alone, but the 
entire class he represented. The king's capricious 
and insane temper exaggerated every favour shown 

* 1 Samuel, chaps, xiii., xv. 



110 THE JUDGES. 

to his fancied rival into treason against himself. 
His own son Jonathan he had nearly slain at a ban- 
quet for saying a word in behalf of his banished 
friend. He armed himself against the popular feel- 
ing by a foreign body-guard. Annoyed at the influ- 
ence of the priesthood, he sought to make head 
against them by encouraging alien rites of worship. 
The Gibeonites, or menials of the sanctuary, — a tribe 
spared by Joshua in a treaty they had fraudulently 
got, and thereafter made " hewers of wood and 
drawers of water" for the conquerors, — became the 
victims of his cruelty. When he learned that David 
had received food and shelter at the priests' city of 
Nob, he sent Doeg the Edomite, captain of his guard, 
to do a deed no Hebrew would lift his hand to, and 
massacred the whole company of priests, amounting 
to eighty-five, together, it is added, with every living 
creature in the place. This last act, more than any 
other, cut him off from the affection of a people only 
too ready to overlook his faults, who could not but 
regard him with horror now. The crime was strictly 
expiated in his own fall, and in the ruin of his 
house. 

To these outbreaks of frantic passion Samuel 
opposed only his grave remonstrance, and, at last, 
the total withholding of his confidence. " The only 
weapon he used was to keep aloof from Saul." Awed 
by his austere and composed superiority, Saul never 
once attacked him ; or, if he had designs against 
Ms life, when Samuel went with David to dwell at 
Naioth, yet as soon as he came near, his resolution 
forsook him ; he caught the contagion of the sacred 



DEATH OF SAMUEL. Ill 

ground he trespassed on ; and lay down in a pro- 
phetic raving all day and all night, " naked," or 
stripped of his royal robes ; so that again the saying 
went abroad, " Is Saul also among the prophets ? " 

When Samuel resigned the regency he had borne 
so worthily, and saw the dominion intrusted to the 
hands of Saul, he had made an emphatic appeal to 
the people ; who with one voice bore witness to his 
integrity in office, and the unswerving fidelity of his 
administration. The proud consciousness of it in 
his own mind was matched by the grateful sense 
of it in the popular veneration. Through a long 
life he had been true to his single purpose of secur- 
ing the integrity of the national institutions, and the 
regeneration of the Hebrew faith. And now that 
the nation was so violently distracted by the feud 
between the powers he was not able to reconcile, — 
now that the government and religion of the people 
were in collision, and the man whom his prophetic 
eye saw to be most fit for the occasion was a fugitive 
and outlaw, and the obstinate enemy was taking 
advantage of distraction and weakness to complete 
the ruin of the state, — his own work might seem 
all undone, unless the people's loyalty to him were 
a pledge of some better future. 

It was at the darkest period of this unhappy 
quarrel, just before the very crisis of the desperate 
struggle for independence, that the old man died, — 
leaving Saul, restless and wretched, to be preyed 
on by remorse and brooding jealousies ; leaving the 
kingdom distracted for the time by civil feud, and 
the transient outlawry and recreancy of its noblest 
son, the man of genius and the man of destiny, 



112 THE JUDGES. 

Once more Samuel appears upon the stage ; — not 
now as the Prophet, stern and faithful in a degener- 
ate age, or as the trusted Counsellor and Judge ; but 
as the avenging Phantom that warns the wretched 
king of his impending defeat and death, — a fitting 
announcement of the gloomy close that awaited the 
forfeited honour of the royal station. The awful 
shade of the Prophet whose free choice had made 
him the offer of the noblest destiny, whose counsel 
he had scorned, whose hostility he had defied, whose 
aid he had foolishly thought to despise and reject, all 
for pure incompetency to bear the great trust of roy- 
alty, appals him at the eve of battle, and utters the 
dreadful warning, never to be recalled : " Jehovah 
hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand ; and to- 
morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me ! " It was 
the phantom of a despised and affronted Majesty, " as 
gods ascending out of the earth." "And Saul fell 
straightway on the earth, and was sore afraid be- 
cause of the words of Samuel ; and there was no 
strength in him." 

The next day the battle was joined. And when 
Israel was smitten, and fled before the Philistines 
on Mount Gilboa, Saul, being " sore wounded of the 
archers," died there by his own hand. 



IV. DAVID. 

AT the time of the fatal battle on Mount Gilboa, 
David was thirty years old ; and for the next 
forty years the history of the Hebrew people is the 
history of his reign and life. By force of circum- 
stances and force of character he had already reached 
a position which made him the inevitable and wel- 
come successor of the fallen king. His early bravery 
and discretion had won him the hearts of all the 
people. His youth was signalized by feats of roman- 
tic gallantry, told in popular song and story. Almost 
from boyhood up he had been the one acknowledged 
champion of Israel ; and on no other could the parties 
of priest and people unite so well. 

Whatever was wanting of ancient claim was more 
than made up by recent services. For years of a 
marauding life, at the head of a lawless and adven- 
turous troop, he had been the guardian of the frontier 
against the desert hordes from the south. To his own 
free companions he had endeared himself by a bold, 
frank, and generous demeanour ; and their violent 
and rude temper was thoroughly subdued to his na- 
tive superiority of mind, and his well-timed policy. 
Possessing in the highest degree the personal qualities 
of a leader of men, he never, from first to last, lost 

ii 



114 DAVID. 

the warm and enthusiastic regard of his immediate 
followers. When Bethlehem, his native town, was 
once beleaguered, and he happened to express a 
longing for a draught of water from the spring 
he used to drink of there, three of his men broke 
through the enemies' force, and at the hazard of 
their lives brought it to him : but David would not 
drink " the blood of the men that went in jeopardy 
of their lives," and poured it out as a libation to 
Jehovah. This is but a single example of the gen- 
erous rivalry of that camp-life, and of the devoted 
allegiance of his troop. The same spirit with which 
he had inspired them was shown, too, in the entreaty 
made to him once and again in his later life, to avoid 
personal exposure in battle : he should not " quench 
the light of Israel ; " his life was worth, his warriors 
said, " ten thousand of such as we." 

To the captivating personal qualities of a military 
chief he added a sagacious policy, which showed yet 
more plainly his superiority to the rude men about 
him. He enforced on his troop an equitable division 
of the spoil taken from the Amalekites ; and estab- 
lished the rule that the guards of the camp should 
have an equal share with those who went to the 
battle, — instead of the disorderly scramble, in which 
might is the only right. His own share he sent in 
gifts to the leading men of the towns of Judah, re- 
minding them of his present power and past services ; 
and when the news came of Saul's defeat and death, 
he had only to go up to Hebron, where he was at 
once inaugurated king. His policy towards the Phi- 
listines was of a more questionable sort, and had 



•PERSONAL QUALITIES. 115 

nearly committed him fatally to an act of treason. 
From this, however, he was saved by a happy acci- 
dent ; and kept the strength of his position as their 
ally, without paying down the ruinous price they 
claimed. 

Then he was not only a man of action : he was a 
man of thought and emotion, — in both, a type of 
the better tendencies of the Hebrew mind. His early 
culture had been full as much in the school of arts 
as in the school of arms. He had doubtless shared 
the religious training of Samuel, which included all 
the mental accomplishments known to the time. In 
the first report to Saul of " the son of Jesse the Beth- 
lehemite," he is told of as one " skilled in playing, 
and a mighty valiant man, prudent in affairs, and 
of beautiful person, and Jehovah is with him." By 
temperament he shared profoundly in the popular 
religious impressions and beliefs. His songs and 
odes, composed on occasions of victory or defeat, of 
penitence or gratitude, in the fields where he kept 
his flocks, or in caves where he lay hid from an 
insane and violent king, or on some high festival 
of public joy, have touched religiously more hearts 
than perhaps any other human compositions, and 
are to this day the model of the devotional poetry 
of the world. Both early culture and later circum- 
stances had brought him into a hearty good under- 
standing with the religious party of the nation, or 
the priesthood. Saul had long broken with them, 
and had deeply exasperated them. From the time 
of his brutal massacre of the priests at Nob, the out- 
law David, to whom Abiathar had fled, taking with 



116 DAVID. 

him the high-priest's prestige and the patrimonial 
right, had been the recognized champion of that 
party. He had previously gained to his cause the 
sanction of a holy man, the prophet Gad, — a per- 
sonal friend, perhaps, — whose counsel carried with 
it something of a Divine sanction ; but with Abia- 
thar he possessed the sacred oracle of Urim, and 
the avowed adhesion of the representatives of the 
nation's faith. Their opposition had been fatal to 
the reign and life of Saul; their steady and unwav- 
ering support secured to David not only his security 
from first to last, but his almost unchallenged place 
in history. 

Though long an outlaw and fugitive, and for near 
a year and a half an exile in the enemies' service, 
David was not without his strong claims on the na- 
tion's respect and gratitude. In his boyhood, the 
prophetic eye of Samuel had selected him as the one 
fit to bear the charge of the rule of Jehovah's people. 
His symbolic anointing, if it did not make him openly 
suspected to the king, must (if any were privy to it) 
have turned on him the eyes of a loyal and enthusi- 
astic party, who deplored Saul's widening defection 
from the national faith ; while at the same time it 
must have done much to elevate and fix the temper 
of his own thought, and to give him that secret re- 
ligious assurance and trust in the living Providence 
which was so strongly characteristic of him. The 
popular mind, too, dwelt fondly on the almost fabu- 
lous exploits that had first brought him into public 
favour. While a shepherd-boy, tending flocks at Beth- 
lehem, he had killed a lion and a bear that came 



EARLY EXPLOITS. 117 

to take a lamb out of the fold. When the giant 
Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a 
span, and whose spear was like a weaver's beam, 
had for forty days defied the armies of Israel, and 
no man was found bold enough to meet him, David, 
armed only with a sling and five smooth stones from 
the brook, smote him on the forehead with a sudden 
well-aimed blow that brought him to the ground, 
slew him with his own sword, and so put all the 
Philistine host to flight. Jonathan, Saul's eldest 
son, loved him " as his own soul," with all the 
warmth of a kindred and generous spirit : each had 
distinguished himself by romantic feats of valour, and 
with equal frankness each recognized a brother and 
true friend. Saul, from the first, with a kingly eye 
as yet undarkened by jealousy, saw his high quali- 
ties, and did them honour : made him first his armour- 
bearer and captain of a thousand men ; then gave 
him his daughter for a bride, and the next place in 
station after his own cousin Abner, chief commander 
of the forces. And the people could not but remem- 
ber the time when, as> each hostile inroad came, David 
was the man to meet it ; how he " behaved himself 
wisely " in every commission the king intrusted to 
him, and " was accepted in the sight of all the peo- 
ple ; " and how when " the women came out of all 
the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet 
King Saul, with tabrets, with joy, and with instru- 
ments of music, they answered one another as they 
played, and said : — 

" Saul hath slain his thousands, 
But David his ten thousands." 



118 DAVID. 

Such was the youth which had introduced this 
new hero upon the stage, — a youth soon imbittered 
by the king's distrust and insane jealousy. Twice, 
when " the evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him," 
and David played to soothe him, as was his wont, 
he had hurled his javelin at him unprovoked ; and 
David knew that his life was not safe in the king's 
hands. He had escaped one snare, by returning suc- 
cessful from the perilous exploit that was to win his 
bride, or more likely forfeit his life ; and when Mi- 
chal loved him, and all the people loved him, Saul 
" was yet the more afraid of him, and became his 
enemy continually." Jonathan's generous interces- 
sion reconciled his father to him for a time ; then 
only a hasty flight by night, and Michal's stratagem 
(who feigned that he was sick, and deceived the mes- 
sengers by showing a wooden image in his bed), saved 
him from seizure and death. Again Jonathan en- 
deavoured to bring about a reconciliation, which his 
father's sudden rage convinced him was impossible ; 
and he met him by appointment in a harvest-field, 
to take farewell, and bid him fly for his life. He saw 
his friend's noble qualities, and the doom that must 
inevitably come upon his father's house ; and, in the 
tenderest appeal to his gratitude and honour, urged 
him to remember their friendship, and deal kindly 
by his own family who would come hereafter into his 
charge. So they took a sacred oath of mutual fidel- 
ity, " and kissed one another, and wept one with 
another," till Jonathan, who saw that time must not 
be lost, bade him go in peace, and he arose and 
departed. They saw each other only once again, 



ADULLAM. . 119 

when Jonathan came out into the wilderness to warn 
him of new designs against his life. Then, parting 
forever, they once more solemnly renewed their 
pledge, — a pledge but coldly fulfilled in David's 
tardy and suspicious hospitalities towards Mephibo- 
sheth, Jonathan's lame son. 

The period which followed was a critical and event- 
ful one for David's fortunes. Amidst the dangers 
and privations he was exposed to, his force of mind 
became developed, and his true destiny was found, 
along with the self-reliance he now learned to prac- 
tise. A dark and fatal deed, of which he was the 
unwilling cause, touched him keenly with remorse. 
When in his loneliness he had applied for counsel 
and supplies to the priest Abimelech, who fed his 
fainting troop with "shew-bread" from the sacred 
table, he had feigned the king's commission ; and the 
old man was thus deceived into an act of hospitality 
which provoked the jealous king to the massacre of 
himself and his whole company. Thus driven from 
the realm by the calamity his presence seemed to 
carry with it, David thought to take refuge with the 
Philistine king. Insecure here as elsewhere, he re- 
turned to Judah, and roughly fortified himself in 
the cave of Adullam. Here " every one that was in 
distress, and every one that was in debt, and every 
one that was discontented, gathered themselves to 
him ; and he became captain over them ; and there 
were with him about four hundred men," — a number 
that shortly grew to six hundred. 

With this outlaw troop, devoted to his service, he 
did not revolt against Saul, or do mischief to the 



120 DAVID. 

country. A deeper or else a more generous policy 
dictated another course. He assumed the position 
of defender of the region against hostile inroads, and 
became a self-appointed guard of the frontier. For- 
midable as of old was his name as foe of the Philis- 
tines, while he relieved a beleaguered town or dis- 
persed their forces in the field. The supplies he 
needed would be freely rendered by the people, who 
found his protection so much more effective than 
that of the crippled monarchy; and, from one in- 
stance, — that of Nabal, whose wife he afterwards 
married, — we know that if these had been refused, 
neither he nor his freebooters would have scrupled 
to take them with a strong hand, and pay for them 
in blood. Towards Saul he cherished, according to 
the narrative, even a romantic loyalty. While in 
imminent hazard of his life, betrayed by the people 
of the city he had rescued, or the district in which 
he lodged ; once saved only by the sudden tidings of 
a Philistine invasion to the north, and finally fleeing 
in utter desperation to the enemy, — an account twice 
told, with different incidents, relates how he spared 
the king's life when completely in his power, and so 
worked on his better feeling as to make him desist 
from his persecution, and swear again the faith he 
had treacherously broken. 

Very abruptly, upon this last reconciliation, we 
find him despairing of his life, and taking refuge 
with Achish, king of Gath. As the captain of a 
large company of bold and well-trained men, and 
as the object of Saul's unappeasable resentment, he 
presented claims quite different from those of the 



AMONG THE PHILISTINES. 121 

solitary exile who had fled from their hospitality 
years before. Their Philistine policy was to disable 
the Hebrew power by dividing and distracting it. 
As head of a formidable party at home, he might be 
turned to great account in their scheme of conquest. 
Accordingly, he made his terms as something of an 
independent power. The border town or stronghold 
of Ziklag was put into his hands, — a petty princi- 
pality of his own, from which he afterwards treated 
so independently about the kingdom of Judah. He 
would not fight his countrymen directly in his border 
skirmishes, and spared them carefully in all his ex- 
peditions, — hoodwinking by his adroitness (says 
our narrative) the king's credulous confidence. But 
such good service he rendered to his new allies, by 
beating back the marauders of the wilderness, that 
he came at length to be regarded with a trust almost 
unlimited. 

The approaching decisive battle of Gilboa, in 
which Saul and his sons were slain, must have put 
David to the most terrible alternative. Evasion 
and ambiguity would no longer serve his turn. 
Hitherto he was scrupulously neutral, and might 
be reckoned the friend of either party. Now he 
must make up his mind whether to meet his sov- 
ereign and friend and countrymen in open "fight, 
and so forfeit every higher aim and better hope he 
might have cherished, or else betray the confidence 
placed in him by his new allies, who would certainly 
show no mercy to a deserter on the eve of battle. 
Either case would have rendered his name justly 
infamous, and his further ambition hopeless. For- 



122 DAVID. 

tunately for him, he was spared the decision. The 
jealousy of the Philistine chiefs was roused. They 
suspected his good faith. " How should he reconcile 
himself to his master?" said they; "should it not 
be with the blood of these men ? " So they com- 
pelled him to withdraw, though against his plausible 
and skilful protest, and with the amplest assurance 
of the king's entire confidence. The battle was 
fought. The forces of Israel were dispersed and 
overthrown. The Philistines held undisputed mas- 
tery of the middle country. And David, who had 
returned just in time to recapture his men's families 
and treasures from an Amalekite horde, was peaceably 
established as king of the south country, at Hebron. 

For, in the mean time, his force was continually 
increased by men who thronged to him from every 
quarter of the land, " until it was a great host like 
the host of God." They were men formidable for 
strength and daring, and armed to the teeth ; as the 
later chronicler describes them, " men of might and 
men of war, fit for the battle, that could handle 
shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces 
of lions, and swift as roes upon the mountains, — 
one of the least of them a match for a hundred, and 
one of the greatest for a thousand." * A gathering 
host of such a stamp left no doubt in what direction 
lay the destiny of Israel. 

As king, the military force of David had still for its 
base and nucleus the same regiment of six hundred 
" mighty men " that had gathered about him in the 
wilderness. From first to last, they were the strong- 

* 1 Chronicles xii. 8. 



THE MIGHTY MEN. 123 

hold of his power, and the soul of every great 
achievement of his reign. Their leaders were men 
distinguished each by some marvellous feat of per- 
sonal prowess, such as making stand against whole 
armies, slaying entire battalions, or coping unarmed 
with a giant in panoply, or a lion in a pit. By a 
strict gradation of rank, they were marshalled under 
thirty officers, above whom were two ranks of three 
each, — "mighty men of valour." Joab, son of Da- 
vid's sister, held the almost undisputed station of 
" leader of the host," — a wily, fierce, unscrupulous, 
and relentless man, dangerous to keep in power, yet 
more dangerous to deprive of it. Twice, by a base 
and treacherous assassination, he rid himself of a 
troublesome rival, — killing Abner in revenge for 
his brother Asahel, and Amasa out of pure jealousy. 
Brutal and remorseless as he was, however, he was 
a man whom David could not spare ; and after three 
several attempts to supersede him, he kept his po- 
sition until Solomon's guardsmen slew him at the 
very altar. He was one of the first and boldest 
of those who had joined David in his flight ; and 
was indisputable chief of that formidable body 
which secured him the throne, and made his armies 
practically invincible. The Cherethites and Peleth- 
ites were an alien corps, — both body-guard and ex- 
ecutioners, like the Roman lictors ; the last resource 
of royal power and the first instrument of despotism. 
For the present, the great interest of David was 
peace. He must gain time for his power to become 
firmly knit and independently strong. At Hebron, 
accordingly, he remained something more than seven 



124 DAVID. 

years. His six hundred men with their families he 
quartered upon the towns of Judah, and probably 
paid tribute to the Philistines, who were not sorry 
to see Judah thus made a separate dependent prov- 
ince. He interfered neither with the pretensions of 
Saul's family — represented now by the weak boy 
Ishbosheth — nor with the slow expulsion of the 
Philistines from their late conquest, which was ef- 
fected probably in the course of the ensuing five 
years by the able generalship of Abner. 

One fiercely contested battle, preceded by a sin- 
gular combat of twelve champions on each side, of 
whom all were slain, measured the strength of the 
two parties now in possession of the Hebrew realm ; 
and for two years more, " David waxed stronger and 
stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and 
weaker," till Abner began to feel that David's hand 
alone was equal to the rule of the disorganized state. 
Ishbosheth suspected his coolness, and charged him 
with seeking the power for himself, — implied in his 
marrying Saul's concubine, Eizpah. Upon this Ab- 
ner, the only able man on that side, promptly made 
terms with David, and pledged himself to bring him 
the allegiance of all Israel : and this he would have 
done, reserving honourable terms, doubtless, for the 
son of Saul, but Joab called him back on his way, 
and stabbed him with his own hand, — an act of 
revenge for the death of Asahel, whom Abner had 
slain by a sudden back-thrust of his spear, when 
close pressed in flight. Ishbosheth was presently 
after murdered in his bed ; and, nothing standing in 
David's way, he was at once received unchallenged, 
as the sovereign of all Israel. 



JERUSALEM. 125 

The first acts of David's reign were parts of a con- 
sistent and determined policy, to fortify and extend 
his independent power. This must be done by con- 
quest first, at home, of the remnants of old tribes that 
still held out against the Hebrews ; and next abroad, 
by absorbing or suppressing, at any hazard, the out- 
lying races that might menace the frontier. This 
policy was to prepare the way for converting the 
Hebrew realm itself into a strong, compact, and well- 
ordered state, on the familiar model of an Oriental 
autocracy. The germs of it were fully developed 
under the long reign of Solomon ; it was checked 
only by the revolt of the ten tribes, and the final 
division of the kingdom. 

The Jebusite settlement, or encampment, about 
Mount Moriah had maintained till now a scanty 
fragment of the old Canaanitish power. The place 
was so strong by nature that its defenders told 
David, in defiance, that their lame and blind could 
hold it out against him. But Joab, dauntless as 
unscrupulous, seized their stronghold on the neigh- 
bouring hill of Zion, and the garrison was speedily 
reduced. This cluster of hills David chose for his 
capital, naming it Jerusalem, the " heritage of 
Peace." It was on the border of his own tribe, 
Judah, belonging almost equally to the territory 
of Benjamin, — as nearly central, therefore, as any 
place not too far from the actual seat of his power. 
The high and rocky hill of Zion, well watered by 
springs from surrounding heights, lies toward the 
southwest, flanked by the rugged vales of Hinnom 
and Jehoshaphat, and separated by a deep ravine 



126 DAVID. 

from Moriah on the east and the gentler slopes of 
Millo at the north. The whole site covers no more 
than a square mile. The portion known as the 
"city of David," the original stronghold of Zion, 
was strongly entrenched as the citadel of the realm. 
The smooth slopes of Millo became the populous 
quarter, while the broad summit of Moriah lay open 
till the next reign. 

That nothing might be wanting to the honours of 
the new capital, it was made the head-quarters of the 
national religion. The ark had remained at Kirjath- 
jearim ever since its recovery from the Philistines in 
Samuel's time ; and one of the first of David's public 
acts, delayed three months by the evil omen of Uz- 
zah's death, was now to bring it, with songs and a 
great procession, in triumph to the capital ; himself, 
in a Levite's garb, leaping and dancing at the head. 
It was placed in a new tabernacle on Mount Zion, 
until there should be means and time to build a 
temple corresponding in magnificence with the new 
position the nation had now assumed. The order of 
Levites was now for the first time established, or else 
reinstated with far more splendour than ever before. 
The religious orders were allied or incorporated with 
the monarchy, which thus secured the support of the 
religious feeling of the people ; while the two high- 
priests required by this policy (one belonging to the 
old rural sanctuary) would not easily combine to 
form a power dangerous to the king's supremacy. 

These were the earlier steps of that vigorous cen- 
tralizing policy characteristic of the reign of David 
and his successor. Very naturally, they roused the 



CONQUESTS. 127 

jealousy of neighbouring powers. The Philistines 
were alarmed for their security, and at once com- 
menced a new invasion. David first beat them thor- 
oughly in the vale of Rephaim, the Giants' Valley, 
near Jerusalem ; then, by counsel of an oracle, stole 
a march upon them when the rising night-wind 
stirred " the tops of the mulberry-trees," and drove 
them back within their ancient boundaries ; then, on 
a third attack, he " smote them, and subdued them, 
and took from them the Bridle-Arm,"* — that is, 
hampered them by seizing the strong posts which 
curbed the frontier, — so that they troubled him no 
more till close on the termination of his reign. The 
most formidable peril to the nation's independence 
was thus timely overcome. 

The three wars which followed — with Moab, Am- 
nion, and Edom — were further steps of the same 
steady and perhaps necessary policy. Each was a 
painful illustration of the ferocious temper in which 
these border feuds were waged. 

The case of Moab seems especially cruel and wan- 
tonly vindictive. It was the home of David's an- 
cestry, the native land of Ruth, his father's grand- 
mother ; and at the darkest hour of his peril from 
the animosity of Saul, he had placed the family of 
Jesse there for security. What the pretext or provo- 
cation was we do not know. The story of the war is 
told in a single sentence. " He smote Moab, and 
measured them with a line, casting them down to 
the ground (as helpless prisoners of war) ; with two 
lines he measured to put to death, and with one full 

* Metheg Ammah. 



128 DAVID. 

line to keep alive." The sole object of this sav- 
age massacre was apparently to destroy the nation's 
force so thoroughly that he might find no resistance 
in that quarter to any future scheme of conquest or 
defence. Effectually as this policy was carried out, 
there is no room to doubt that it was wholly success- 
ful so far as his own reign only was concerned ; but 
we learn from the prophets how dearly the debt of 
blood was paid in the border hostilities that harassed 
the later monarchy. 

The turn of Edom came next, — Edom, that dwelt 
in the rocky and almost inaccessible ravines skirting 
the Arabian desert. The Edomites, perhaps in re- 
taliation for Saul's invasion of them, had joined in a 
concerted attack, by which the outlying tribes of the 
east and south hoped to crush the rising supremacy 
of Israel. They were beaten in a sanguinary battle 
in the Salt Yalley, south of the Dead Sea, El Ara- 
bah ; and Joab, following them up to their rocky 
fastnesses, quartered himself there for six months, ex- 
terminating every male creature he could find. They 
were driven from their old capital, Selah, or Petra, 
farther back into the wilderness, utterly broken and 
disabled, so that for fifty years they could gather no 
effective force ; but they bloodily avenged themselves 
long after, and maintained a feud with Israel that 
lasted for several centuries.* 

But the great and eventful conflict of David's reign 
was with the allied forces of the east and north. The 

* Psalm xviii. is thought to be the song of triumph at the meeting 
of David, victorious in the east, with Joab, returning from this expe- 
dition in the south. 



WAR WITH AMMON. 129 

Ammonites were already jealous and alarmed ; the 
fate of Moab hurried them into a rash defiance of 
the conqueror. David had sent courteous messages 
to the young chief, Hanun, whose father was just 
dead. But Hanun suspected treachery in his bold 
and wily neighbour. The envoys he treated as spies. 
By way of aggravated insult, he " shaved off one 
half of their beards, and cut off their garments in 
the middle, and sent them away ; " then mustered 
the forces of his Syrian alliance, and made war at 
once. David, bidding the degraded messengers 
" tarry at Jericho till their beards were grown," 
was not slow to avenge the affront, — to Eastern 
notions the most unpardonable that could be offered. 
The war lasted three years. The numerous cavalry 
from the great plains of Syria was broken and foiled 
in the rough region beyond Jordan. The obstinate 
courage and thorough training of David's men made 
good any lack of numbers. As the result of the 
struggle, both Damascus and the whole country as 
far as the Euphrates became tributary to Israel. 
The Ammonites, deprived of their allies, had no 
hope but in holding out to the utmost in the strongly 
built town of Rammah. Here Joab besieged them ; 
and here Uriah the Hittite perished by the base 
treachery of David, who had ordered that brave and 
loyal officer to be deserted in the front post of dan- 
ger. In a year or more the town was effectually 
reduced ; and the politic Joab sent to David to come 
and claim for himself the honours of its capture. So 
David, his hands stained with his still fresh guilt in 
the affair of Uriah, came and took the place, and 

6* i 



130 DAVID. 

inflicted a far more cruel vengeance than even the 
massacres of Moab and Edom. He " brought forth 
the people that were therein, and put them under 
saws and harrows of iron," — that is, tortured them 
in various ways, — and some he smothered in heated 
ovens (" brick-kilns ") ; " and thus did he to all the 
cities of the children of Ammon." * 

David was now near the middle of his reign, and 
at the summit of his power. Under the influence of 
unbridled passion, and gratified ambition, and pam- 
pered lust of sway, had ripened the seeds of all that 
was base and cruel in his nature. How he backed 
the passions of the blood by infamous treachery to- 
wards a loyal and unsuspecting companion-in-arms 
had been shown in that most guilty act of his life, 
the affair of Bathsheba and Uriah. The same capri- 
cious and despotic indulgence led to the other fast- 
coming calamities of his life. Departing from the 
simpler example Saul had set, he had followed from 
the first one of the worst practices of Eastern despot- 
ism, — a multiplicity of wives. Polygamy was a cus- 
tom which the Hebrew institutions did not approve, 
and which the patriarchal history warned against, — 
the more mischievous, perhaps, because tolerated 
against the protest of the general sense. Saul's 
daughter Michal had been given to another man ; 
but David had reclaimed her at once on coming to 
the throne, so as to unite the claims of both royal 

* The Assyrian monuments leave no doubt as to what was the ordi- 
nary treatment of a captured town in this early age. Compare Judges 
viii. 16; Proverbs xx. 26; Amos i. 3. Psalm xxi. is held to be the 
ode written to commemorate this frightful act of vengeance. 



HIS HOUSEHOLD. 131 

houses, — taking her forcibly from a husband who 
loved her and long followed her weeping when she 
was torn from him ; then letting her live in solitude 
and neglect. At Hebron there were already six 
wives in his seraglio, and at Jerusalem at least ten, 
— each with her wasteful separate household, liable 
to shameful exhibitions of jealousy and strife, and 
stimulating still more highly the despotic appetite 
for change. It was this that brought on him the 
fatal act of the abduction of Bathsheba, with its train 
of evil consequences, and its maiming of his moral 
strength. Remorse as deep and penitence as sincere 
as that he unquestionably felt might restore in part 
the inward harmony and the spiritual force he had 
lost ; but it could not restore the dignity of his posi- 
tion, or the confidence he had forfeited, or the domes- 
tic peace he had invaded. The coarse and unscrupu- 
lous Joab, whom he had made partner and confidant 
of his guilt, would be never backward in using the 
advantage it gave him over a master who could not 
shake him off, — a bitter cross to the nobler nature 
of the king.* Still more, while the vicious custom 
was retained, the same root of bitterness would put 
forth similar shoots. 

In such a state of things as now existed in his es- 
tablishment, violent jealousies break out, and hatred, 
among the children of different mothers. By Oriental 
custom, the brother, even more than the father, is 
the defender of his sister's honour. Among the 
twenty or more children of David's household it is 

* How deeply David must have felt this thraldom is apparent from 
the language of Psalm ci. 



132 DAVID. 

not surprising that we find instances of fraternal 
feud ending in blood. Absalom avenged his sister 
Tamar by the murder of his half-brother Amnon ; 
then fled to his mother's country towards Assyria, 
where he remained three years. By Joab's crafty 
intercession he was at length recalled ; but, though 
David's private indignation was appeased, some pen- 
alty must be suffered for public justice' sake, and 
for two years longer Absalom was not permitted to 
see the king's face. When at length he was restored 
to his former place, and became the acknowledged 
heir of the crown, he had brooded so long over his 
disgrace, that his one settled purpose was revenge, 
and he used his new advantage to stir up a desperate 
conspiracy. 

In the simple fashion of Oriental monarchy, then 
as now, the sovereign must listen to many complaints, 
and, in a multitude of cases, render justice in his own 
person. This exposes him to all the rancour of pri- 
vate disappointment, and complaints of favouritism. 
In David's case, it laid him open to the further jeal- 
ousy always ready to break out against his own tribe 
of Judah. Absalom took advantage of the disaffec- 
tion he saw gathering from this source. When any 
came for justice, he would not so much as receive the 
ordinary respect paid to a king's son ; but gave an 
equal greeting, regretted the king's inefficiency and 
the law's delay, and said, " that I were made judge, 
that any man which hath any suit or cause might 
come to me, and I would do him justice." And 
" when any man came to do him obeisance, he put 
forth his hand and took him and kissed him. So 



ABSALOM. 133 

Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." A 
natural indulgence towards the proud beauty and 
hasty passions of his youth grew easily into an impa- 
tient wish to see him in his father's seat. David, 
partially fond and weakly indulgent towards Absa- 
lom, — now his eldest son, and of royal blood too on 
his mother's side, — suspected nothing. When Absa- 
lom on a feast-day* gave the signal for revolt in 
Hebron, things took so sudden a turn, that by noon 
lie was master of Jerusalem ; and in the same even- 
ing, his father, a sorrowful exile, with a few trusty 
friends and the right arm of his power, his guard of 
mighty men, took such hasty flight, that "by the 
morning light there lacked not one of them that was 
not gone over Jordan." Absalom's purpose was now 
to follow him up, and crush him before his force could 
rally. This was the "wise counsel" of Ahithophel. 
It was foiled by Hushai, a confidential adviser of 
the king's, who took the discreet step of volunteering 
his service, and humoured Absalom's idle temper by 
framing plausible reasons of delay. 

For some three months the young prince now 
wantoned in the exercise of his ill-got power. But, 
thanks to Hushai, David had gained all he required, 
— time. His name and cause were daily gathering 
strength. The priestly party in Jerusalem acted as 
his spies, and extemporized a hazardous but very 
effective way of communication. Supplies came in 
from the loyal east-country, which he had delivered 
from the border feuds with Ammon, and where he 

* After a delay of "forty years/' says the narrative, returning 
quaintly upon the old style of chronology. 



134 DAVID. 

now staked his fortunes. When the army of the con- 
spiracy invested his stronghold at Mahanaim, it was 
already too late. A bloody battle was fought in the 
" woods of Ephraim." Twenty thousand of the Is- 
raelites are said to have been slain, and many more 
perished miserably in forest and fen. Absalom him- 
self, caught from his mule by his luxuriant hair, and 
swinging helpless from the branches of an oak tree, 
was thrust through the heart by Joab's own hand. 
Anything less prompt and summary than this, he 
argued, would have been ineffectual to stay the guilt 
of a son's rebellion, or make the future safe. But it 
was against David's express command ; and all the 
sovereign's sternness was lost in the father's tender- 
ness, as he broke into the passionate lamentation, " 
my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom ! Would 
God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my 
son ! " 

Like a beaten army the force slunk back into the 
city, and the king's grief was fast becoming their 
discontent ; when Joab roughly chided him, and 
brought him to himself, threatening a worse rebellion 
before night than that just crushed. How divided 
and sensitive the popular temper was, was shown just 
after, when the old jealousy against Judah broke out 
afresh in the north, and again the rough promptness 
of Joab was needful to check the new conspiracy in 
the bud. 

Hitherto the nation had felt the advantage, rather 
than any heavy pressure, of the strong consolidated 
force of monarchy. It was free from fear of enemies 
abroad, and delivered from the violence of feuds at 



POLICY OF PEACE. 135 

home. The eventful and decisive wars into which 
the commencement of David's reign was plunged, 
give the impression 'that it was a period of military 
action chiefly, and perhaps of military despotism. 
But, on the contrary, as compared with previous times, 
and even with whole centuries of modern history, it 
was rather a period of peace. Of the thirty-three 
years of his sovereignty, not more than ten were 
probably taken up in warfare ; at least twenty were 
years of greater security and quiet than had ever 
been known in Israel. The arts of peace throve even 
more than the fame of war. Conquest for its own 
sake David did not attempt : it was against the genius 
of the Hebrew people, and against their standing jeal- 
ousy of a military despotism, or indeed of any form 
of centralization. Tyre and Sidon, which lay on his 
northern seaboard, the conqueror of Syria spared ; nor 
was there any interruption of the friendly relation in 
which they stood towards the Hebrew state. Perhaps 
the absorption of the Oanaanite populations had been 
brought about by a compromise which respected their 
old title to such domains as they still possessed ; and 
this may account for the Jebusite garrison at Jerusa- 
lem, and the enrolling of Hittites, Cherethites, and 
Pelethites in David's force, as well as for the politic 
sparing of Phoenicia: or, again, the public interest 
was better served by trade than conquest, and Tyre 
was too good a market to lose. At any rate, com- 
merce, and a large increase of wealth and gain in the 
arts of peace, especially in agriculture, were quite as 
important features of this reign as either services of 
religion or feats of arms, — features of which the con- 



136 DAVID. 

sequence was seen more fully in the time of Solomon. 
Immense access of riches and population, the natural 
growth of untaxed peace, had given quite a new ma- 
terial basis to the Hebrew empire. 

For the sake of knowing his own strength more 
accurately, or with some design of further conquests, 
or (still more likely) with a view to greater consoli- 
dation, and an organized despotism similar to that of 
Egypt, David now sent Joab to take a census of the 
tribes. Whatever his design, it was broken short in 
the beginning. The popular instinct, even under the 
freest form of government, is restive and suspicious 
when private affairs are made matter of close inspec- 
tion to public agents, — a feeling curiously reflected 
in the Mosaic law,* that a piece of silver should be 
paid, on such an occasion, as the ransom of each 
man's life, to propitiate, apparently, the dread of an 
ignorant superstition. In David's case, the law was 
perhaps not known, -— at any rate, not regarded ; so 
that the popular feeling had full sway. Joab, as 
spokesman of this feeling, remonstrated in vain. He 
wished the people might be a hundred times as many, 
but protested, along with all the captains of the host, 
against what they thought the mad project of the 
king. The census was taken, notwithstanding, and 
with results amply to gratify the royal pride. 

But at that, and much later ages,f fantastic and 
unreal causes were -assigned to any great calamity. 

* Exodus xxx. 12. 

t Thus cholera, famine, and the Kussian war were all three con- 
fidently traced to the guilt which the British nation had incurred by the 
"Maynooth grant" in 1845. 



CENSUS OF THE TRIBES. 137 

A pestilence or famine was no strange thing in that 
climate ; but the religious terror of its coming must 
be met by assigning a religious and not a physical 
cause. A little while before, at such a visitation, 
instead of referring it to any recent guilt of the 
present dynasty, an oracle had said,* that it was 
" for Saul's bloody house, because he had slaughtered 
the Gibeonites ; " and, on the strength of this, David 
had appeased their kinsmen's sullen revenge by giv- 
ing them seven innocent boys to hang, which they 
mercilessly did, — seven of the sons and grandsons 
of Saul. The lonely watch of the bereaved Rizpah, 
protecting (like Antigone) the dear remains from 
desecration, sheds a single gleam of humanity across 
the tragical gloom. 

The same cruel superstition, shared this time by 
the king himself, saw in a similar infliction the chas- 
tisement of his fault in numbering the people. The 
" seventy thousand " who perished were thought to 
be vicarious sufferers for his guilt. The calamity 
was so far relieved, that no inhuman expiation was 
enjoined this time, as before ; and it was so far a 
mercy that it probably checked the too rapid advance 
the state was making towards a pure and compact 
despotism. The event dwelt so profoundly in the 
popular mind, that the first thought of the census 
was referred to God's own prompting, who sought an 
occasion to punish the sins of the people ; and after- 
wards to Satan, the nation's adversary. It was 
further said, that a prophet warned David to make 
his choice of the three calamities of war, famine, and 

* 2 Samuel, chap. xxi. 



138 DAVID. 

pestilence, and that his piety chose the last ; and, 
finally, that the angel of Death was seen to stand on 
Mount Moriah, on the spot where the brazen altar of 
the temple afterwards stood, and for fifty shekels of 
silver (which the later account magnifies into six hun- 
dred of gold) David bought the piece of ground from 
the Jebusite king Araunah, and built an altar there.* 
This census of the tribes is King David's last re- 
corded public act. It is significant of the fixed pur- 
pose he had held, only deferred by the troubles of his 
reign, to provide for the more perfect organization of 
a priesthood, and the splendour of a temple ritual. 
As expiation of his faults, or as the free-will offering 
of his piety, he had made large preparations for the 
work so magnificently executed by his successor. 
Ever since the establishing of the high place of wor- 
ship with the sacred ark at Jerusalem, he had 
worked steadily to that' end. We have still the weary 
chronicle of names, which the hierarchy gratefully 
preserved, in memory of his pious labours. But it 
was now too late for him to engage in any further 
enterprise on a large scale. Exhausted by the 
fatigues and exposures of his arduous life, he had 
reached already at seventy a decrepit and comfortless 
old age*. His failing energy was yet enough to baffle 
Adonijah's hasty ambition, and establish the boy Sol- 
omon as his successor, — already a singular stretch 
of arbitrary power for the free state of Israel, to 
which he had been called by the popular voice, and 
had taken oath as a constitutional king, — and then 
he died ; leaving to Solomon, as his last bequest, a few 

* 2 Samuel, chap. xxiv. ; and 1 Chronicles, chap. xxi. 



CHARACTER. 139 

instructions of his implacable policy, and a brief hymn 
to set forth the pattern of kingly virtue.* 

There are few characters in history which perplex 
the moral judgment more than that of David. To 
the grateful thought of an after age he was the model 
prince of the Hebrew monarchy, the type of the Mes- 
siah, or ideal Prince, who should hereafter fulfil the 
nation's hope, and be sovereign of the world. The 
religious mind of Christendom has represented him 
as the " man after God's own heart ; " the royal 
Psalmist, or inspired and prophetic Bard : the pecu- 
liar champion and favourite of Jehovah; the man 
who could fearlessly and truly say, "My transgression 
is forgiven, and my sin is covered over." It has even 
been believed that God's covenant, made with Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, was explicitly renewed with 
him and his posterity ; and that the future Sovereign 
of the world must by a divine guaranty be one of lin- 
eal descent from him. All these views, again, are re- 
flected in the various utterances of the Hebrew mind, 
in various passages of Scripture. His faults and 
crimes have been forgotten, in the vague splendour 
that illuminates his princely name. This is due in 
part to the gratitude of the priesthood towards its 
royal patron. It was a necessary policy with him, 
even if it had not been a cause so much after his own 
heart, to reconcile that body to the monarchy, espe- 
cially after its wide estrangement from Saul. What- 
ever the service was, it was amply recompensed in 
the eulogies of the religious historians, and in a 
quality of fame such as scarce belongs to any other. 

* 2 Samuel xxiii. 2 - 5 ; 1 Kings ii. 2 - 9. 



1-40 DAVID. 

Facts were willingly forgotten, or studiously sup- 
pressed, to make history an echo of grateful fancy. 
The writer of the Chronicles passes by in silence 
what the Book of Samuel records and reprobates as 
crime ; enlarging to weariness, instead, on the ser- 
vices he rendered to the priestly body. So that, 
almost as far back as our records date, the true char- 
acter of the man is in danger of being covered up in 
undiscriminating eulogy. 

Almost in direct contrast to this is the judgment 
we should be apt to form from the bare detail of his 
acts. On the page of history names of the darkest 
reproach would be set against him, — names hardly 
to be effaced by any service he could be shown to 
have rendered. It is something more than charity, 
it is fanatical partisanship, which could overlook the 
gross and horrid charges of treachery, licentiousness, 
and murder. The man so idealized in the fond ap- 
prehension of the religious world, shows his splendid 
qualities on a dark background of passion, weakness, 
and guilt. And it is not an easy task to reconcile 
the two contending views, or to persuade ourselves 
that we are rendering account of the same man. 
Yet, unquestionably, each is in its measure right ; 
and extravagant eulogy is no more false than un- 
qualified condemnation. 

The crimes of David are sternly and sufficiently 
told in the plain story of his life. They need no ex- 
aggeration, no rhetorical exhibition, to set them 
forth. And what was regarded as no crime then, — 
his remorseless policy of extermination, the savage 
tortures he wreaked on defenceless prisoners, the 



CHARACTER. 141 

piratical freedom with which he enforced an outlaw's 
claim for food and shelter, — are such as shock our 
moral sense too much to let us err easily on the side 
of lenity. A grave historical judgment will be quite 
as apt to wrong him in one way, as the blindly na- 
tional judgment of his people wrongs the simple truth 
in another way. 

In the very fact of the exalting and idealizing view 
that has commonly been held of him, we see the 
strongest proof that he was eminently a man for his 
own time and people. No other could have rendered, 
then and there, the service rendered by him. It is 
not so much by the detail of a man's acts, as by the 
mark he makes in human history, that we know his 
real greatness, and the quality of his soul. David 
has unquestionably exalted and not debased our 
apprehension of the standard of human character. 
His lasting influence upon the world has not been 
for evil, but very greatly for good. Here is his real 
vindication. His faults, his crimes, black and base 
as they were, have been honestly told by one who 
was bold enough to censure, yet in the main strongly 
moved to honour. A man who looks his own worst 
fault in the face, and gathers up the whole energy of 
his soul in the struggle against it, may be pitiable or 
execrable in his fall, but he is heroic in his recovery. 
And it was so with him. The parable of the ewe- 
lamb, and Nathan's honest Thou art the man, star- 
tled him at once from his passionate and infatuated 
dream, revealed to him the very bottom of his cor- 
rupted heart, and put him upon a course of penitence 
how deep and sincere, a struggle how agonizing and 



142 DAVID. 

prolonged, none doubt who have ever known him 
through the medium of his own confessions in the 
Psalms.* 

To say nothing of the plea that his vices and crim- 
inal exercises of power were only such as were com- 
mon to his age and station, as Oriental despot, while 
his virtues and repentance were his own, — a plea 
to be used with caution as vindicating a superior 
nature, that should disdain to employ or allow it,— 
a single thought shows David's high and true position 
in Hebrew history. Compare his reign as it was, — 
with all its calamities and faults a reign that has 
dwelt so gratefully in the popular memory to this 
day, — with the troubled time that went before, and 
with what it would have been had its fortunes been 
intrusted to the best and ablest of the men by whom 
he was surrounded. We know not one in whom 
some quality of ferocity or weakness would not have 
been fatal. Still less can we think of one who, with 
the powers requisite to the mere task of sustaining 
his position, combined that higher quality of intellect 
and religious fervour which made David so truly the 
representative of the best traits of that race and age. 
In him first the nation of Israel found its name and 
place as a nation vindicated : in him alone — the 
warrior, minstrel, ruler, counsellor, man of the peo- 
ple, and even (on occasion) priest or prophet — the 
fulfilment of its just desire, and the embodiment at 
once of its noblest and most various tendency. 

At the heart and centre of his spiritual nature 
there is a degree of tenderness, generosity, and re- 

"* See especially Psalms xxxii. and li. 






OUTWARD AND INWARD LIFE. 143 

ligious trust, which have always, in the last resort, 
after every deduction of stern and even unfriendly 
criticism, compelled those who truly understood him 
to sum up their judgment in terms of admiration 
and honour. His life, in its long and varied course, 
is an expression of the want, the struggle, the hope, 
the passion, the lawlessness, the aspiration, of his age. 
On the page of history we see him, from first to last, 
the type and embodiment of his people's character ; 
and we can almost forget the man in this spectacle 
of the working out of a nation's life. But another 
and more enduring record he has left of himself, 
wherein his personality is never lost, and can never 
be forgotten. Here, the man David becomes a living 
element in the world's life of religious thought. It 
was real occasions that bred those psalms of his, — 
their true expression ; — so true to the type of 
thought and the nature of the occasion, that more 
than all other compositions they reflect our own 
deepest and highest moods, and meet the precise 
condition of our spiritual nature. This other life 
of himself he has given to the world, — running 
in a plane so 'far higher than that eventful course 
already traced, yet touching it and made one with 
it at each crisis of his destiny. The song that 
echoed in a lonely cave, or rang in the shout of 
a joyous multitude, or consoled a father's weary 
exile in the rebellion of a son, registers to the world 
a spiritual fact, and becomes the precise utterance, 
the cherished record, of every religious mind touched 
by a kindred experience. From the attitude of apol- 
ogists we rise unconsciously to the mood of earnest 



144 DAVID. 

and grateful admiration. We remember the human 
features only in this nobler transfigured likeness. 
The vexed and passionate life of the petty sovereign 
of Israel is forgotten ; and as a monarch in the realm 
of emotion and thought, as a living power in the 
world of mind, we render grateful and willing hon- 
our to the religious genius and the exalted destiny 
of David. 



V. SOLOMON. 

THE reign of Solomon, lasting for another sacred 
period of forty years, crowned and completed 
the brief splendour of the Hebrew monarchy. It 
was the culmination of the people's opulence, power, 
enterprise, and intellectual activity, — the fullest 
maturity which the national existence ever reached. 
Preceded as it was by the dissension and sorrows 
of David's time, and followed by the distractions 
of an enfeebled and divided realm, it became to 
later memory the golden noon of the prosperity 
of Israel. The report of Solomon's wealth was 
fabulous, and his name a synonyme of wisdom and 
magnificence. He knew, said the traditions of the 
East, the secrets of the invisible world, and famil- 
iar spirits brought him the hidden treasures of the 
earth, gold and gems and pearls. To this day, in 
Jewish and Arab fancy, he is the Prince of Magi- 
cians ; and Solomon's name and seal are the most 
potent spell to control daemonic agencies, or compel 
the genii to their task. 

It was while almost a boy, in the flush and con- 
fidence of boyhood, that he assumed the charge left 
him by his dying father. It was David's partiality, 
and Bathsheba's jealous vigilance, that foiled the 
7 J 



146 SOLOMON. 

rival palace intrigues, and made Solomon heir of 
the royal power. With far other qualifications than 
those which had identified his father's fortunes with 
the destiny of the Hebrew people, he entered upon 
a task that must try most severely his wisdom and 
ability. Without the depth of personal experience, 
the fervid passion tempered by wary policy, the pro- 
found popular sympathies, the fine religious sensibil- 
ity, the instinct and the habit of command, which 
were the outfit of " the heroic and royal psalmist," 
and without the spontaneous welcome and approval 
of the people, which recognized in David both a 
providential and a constitutional sovereign, — a boy,* 
brought up within the palace-walls, selected by a 
mother's fondness and a father's arbitrary choice, 
obliged to put down by the bloody policy of a jealous 
despotism the rivals of his power, though his brothers 
in blood, — he made but an inauspicious entrance 
upon a course fruitful of so much mingled good and 
evil to his realm. Deep was his need of that guiding 
wisdom, which was his first and only prayer, when 
" at Gibeon, in a dream by night," Jehovah appeared 
before him, and he besought " an understanding 
heart to judge the people, to discern between good 
and bad : for who (said he) is able to judge this thy 
so great a people ? ' 

The first recorded acts of Solomon's reign illus- 
trate the wide departure already made from the 
customs of a people by instinct free and tenacious 
of their liberty, and the rapid advance that was 

* Only twelve years old at his accession, according to the Jewish 
tradition. 



ACCESSION. 147 

making towards an irresponsible absolutism. They 
illustrate, too, that precocious sagacity and remorseless 
policy often nursed in those brought up in the habit 
and anticipation of authority. A delicate prince of 
the harem, he had already seen his elder brother 
Adonijah put down in his favour at his father's 
dictate, and his life only conditionally spared ; and 
when the elder still hoped to supplant the younger, 
and cautiously solicited through Bathsheba to be al- 
lowed to marry the beautiful Abishag, and with her 
to take the late king's household, Solomon detected 
the lurking conspiracy, and had him despatched at 
once. An Oriental monarchy suffers " no brother 
near the throne." Joab, who was charged with 
sharing the conspiracy, was slain at the altar in 
expiation of his many crimes. Abiathar, the high- 
driest, was banished, as in fulfilment of the tradi- 
tionary curse on Eli's family, that they should be- 
come beggars, and the meanest underlings of the 
priests. Nor was a pretext long wanting to make 
way with Shimei, a man of Saul's family, who had 
mocked David in his misfortunes, and been guarded 
since with the jealous eye of despotism. These acts 
were the familiar policy of irresponsible sovereignty, 
and are related quietly, as things of course. A more 
pleasing instance of the young king's sagacity is told, 
in the case of the two women, mothers of a dead and 
living child. He offered to divide the living child 
between the two, when the agony of the real mother 
at once revealed to him on which side the true claim 
lay. 

Inexorable promptness of state policy, and sagacity 



148 SOLOMON. 

in dispensing justice, thus confirmed whatever was 
wanting in Solomon's title. The royal power was 
effectually settled upon him, and during his long life 
the sceptre never once wavered in his grasp. The 
kingdom came to his hands, on the whole, strong, 
flourishing, united, and loyal. He felt his strength 
and the advantage of his position. His clear native 
intellect taught him that inactivity was weakness, 
and that he must build upon the foundation his fa- 
ther had laid. The genius of the people was averse 
to conquest. The frontier was already larger than 
could be well maintained. Independent Canaanitish 
tribes were still existing, that might easily league 
themselves with the formidable tributaries Damascus 
and Idumaea. These seem to have taken advantage 
of the first unsettled years of his reign, for a com- 
bined revolt.* Some of them compromised their 
hostility on easy terms, so as to keep a good share 
of independence. Others held walled towns on the 
Philistine frontier, defying from their ramparts the 
field-force of the Hebrews. Only after the alliance 
with Egypt were they compelled to a surrender by 
the skill of the Egyptians and their engines of assault. 
The towns were made the dowry of Pharaoh's daugh- 
ter, and the inhabitants reduced to slavery. Thus, 
like the kings of Egypt and Assyria, Solomon had a 
numerous class of slaves, as the raw material of his 
public works. f 

The policy of the kingdom was clearly peace. In- 

* The Second Psalm is considered to be an ode of defiance, written 
at this emergency, 
t 1 Kings ix. 16, 21. 



ALLIANCES. 149 

ternal resources were to be developed, and former 
conquests to be turned to practical account. At the 
same time, political unity must be consolidated, and 
the splendour of the monarchy enhanced, by such 
great national works as should make Jerusalem the 
rival or equal of neighbouring capitals ; while the 
state religion should be organized in an Establish- 
ment, with temple and ritual to befit its claim of 
pre-eminence over the religion of every other people. 
These several points define what was the aim, and in 
some regards the brilliant success, of the reign of 
Solomon. 

For the first time, therefore, under this splendid 
and imposing rule, the Hebrew nation found itself 
abreast of the enterprise of the day, and in active 
competition for a lucrative commerce. Solomon's 
discreet policy secured the alliance of the two bor- 
der monarchies, Egypt and Phoenicia. His father's 
prowess had given him control of the Syrian desert 
and the ports of the Red Sea, Elath and Ezion- 
geber. 

Egypt had before been jealous of the growing 
monarchy of the Hebrews. David's chieftains had 
signalized themselves by personal encounter with 
Egyptian champions ; and Hadad, the Edomite prince 
who fled from Joab's massacre, had found wel- 
come, and a queen's sister in marriage, at Memphis. 
But now the course of policy was changed. Pha- 
raoh — the last monarch of a dynasty perhaps al- 
ready weakened and broken — was glad to recognize 
the firm sovereignty of Jerusalem as a fixed fact. 
His daughter became Solomon's queen, and highest 



150 SOLOMON. 

in station of his many wives. The military skill of 
Egypt was now brought in to extinguish the petty 
independencies it had once aided to harass the Is- 
raelite border ; and its friendly temper was of profit- 
able account in the growing commerce of the Red 
Sea. 

The narrow strip of seaboard called Phoenicia was 
the last remnant of the once proud dynasty of the 
Canaanites, — the inheritor of its arts, its civiliza- 
tion, and its cruel religious rites. The seat of Phoe- 
nician power was already transferred to the almost 
impregnable island of Tyre, where it stood five years 
at bay against Shalmanezer, and long after defied 
the forces of Alexander in a siege of seven months. 
What it had lost on land it had more than made up 
by sea. The rich commerce of Tarshish (Tartessus, 
or Spain), and a monopoly of trade among the Gre- 
cian isles, poured the wealth of the "Western world 
into the splendid ports of Tyre and Sidon ; while the 
empire of Carthage retained, centuries later, the in- 
human rites of Canaan, and obstinately disputed with 
Rome the mastery of the world. David had with- 
held his hand from making good the patriarchal 
claim to this portion of the Promised Land ; and 
Solomon was too sagacious and worldly wise to over- 
look the superior advantage of commerce over con- 
quest. A league was easily entered into, and to all 
appearance faithfully kept. For trade, there should 
be no interference with the Phoenician monopoly of 
the Mediterranean ; for public works, ample assist- 
ance might be had from the superior Tyrian skill. 
The expanding commercial enterprise of the He- 






COMMERCE AND PUBLIC WORKS. 151 

brews found its way along the Red Sea to Sheba, or 
Yemen, the fertile southern shore of Arabia, the na- 
tive land of rare spices and pearls. Their traffickers 
gathered gold and ivory, sandal-wood (for musical 
instruments and ornamental work), and rare animals, 
" apes and peacocks," from the African or Indian 
coast, while their Tyrian allies opened to them the 
market of the Levant; and that first Ionic Confeder- 
acy of Greece, at its stately festival in Delos, burned 
perhaps the incense brought in Solomon's merchant- 
ships : — 

" Sabaean odours from the spicy shore 
Of Arabie the blest." 

The extensive and profitable commerce of which 
Palestine thus became the centre laid the founda- 
tion of the immense wealth of Solomon's realm, and 
bore out the lavish expenditure of his public edifices. 
His ambition, largely gratified here, outran his pru- 
dence in other quarters ; and the uncertain traffic 
across the desert — for which he established the 
princely station of Tadmor or Palmyra, and main- 
tained other costly and vexatious outposts — may have 
led to those exactions which imbittered the people, 
and ultimately broke up the integrity of the kingdom. 

Of Solomon's public works, by far the most gor- 
geous, and the one most familiarly associated with his 
name, as well as most important in the religious his- 
tory of the Jews, was the Temple on Mount Moriah. 
This steep and rugged elevation, half a mile to the 
northeast of Zion, had been left outside the original 
city of David, though one of the little cluster of hills 
making the well-defined site of Jerusalem. Neither 



152 SOLOMON. 

was it a spot of any special traditionary sanctity ; for 
ancient worship sought " high places," and David's 
place of prayer had been the loftier summit of Olivet, 
hard by. The altar erected on Moriah when the pes- 
tilence was stayed was the first consecration of the 
ground afterwards so holy : it was a later tradition, 
probably, that identified it as the spot where Abra- 
ham prepared to sacrifice his son. The new religious 
consecration made it a fit centre of the national wor- 
ship and faith. Nothing could so strengthen the 
monarch in his capital as the founding of a perma- 
nent loyal priesthood, a splendid central sanctuary, 
and a gorgeous temple ritual ; while local jealous- 
ies or the rival" claims of priestly families would be 
merged in a single establishment, that should defy 
all rivalry. One family of chief-priests had, at the 
king's edict, gone into banishment and disgrace. 
The remaining one should be the nucleus of an Order 
to represent by authority the religion of the nation, 
and conduct its stately ritual. 

The gathered treasures and pious gifts of David, as 
well as the fast increasing revenue of the kingdom, 
were lavishly spent upon this favourite scheme of com- 
bined piety, policy, and pride. The rough summit of 
the hill was levelled with immense toil, and widened 
by terraces and vast embankments. From the deep 
valley of Jehoshaphat, where runs the narrow stream 
of Kedron, a wall was built, four hundred and fifty 
feet in height, of enormous blocks of limestone mor- 
tised into the solid rock, — some single stones being 
more than thirty feet in length. While the rest of 
the edifice is utterly destroyed, not a vestige even 



THE TEMPLE. 153 

remaining of the two Jewish temples, or of the Chris- 
tian church that afterwards occupied its site, portions 
of the enormous rock-embankment, rivalling the great 
works of Egypt or the Cyclopic architecture of the 
early Greeks, still flank the sacred hill. 

The Temple itself was built after the pattern of the 
old tabernacle, — i. e. on the square model of a tent, 
— the curtains being replaced by solid walls of stone. 
In size it was but a small chapel, thirty feet wide and 
something more than a hundred long. The " ora- 
cle," shrine, or most sacred place, — where in Pagan 
temples was the image of the Divinity, and perhaps 
the city treasury, — was a cube of thirty feet, divided 
from the rest by doors elaborately carved, and a 
richly embroidered " veil " of blue, crimson, and 
scarlet drapery. Its walls were wainscotted with 
cedar and overlaid with gold. As the special dwell- 
ing-place of Jehovah, it was a place of splendour and 
mystery, impenetrably dark, and to be trodden by no 
human foot, save when once a year the high-priest 
touched the " mercy-seat " with the blood of the vic- 
tim slain for ransom of the people's sin. In this 
most secret and holy habitation was nothing but the 
" Ark of Jehovah," a small gilded chest of Egyptian 
pattern, fabricated (it was said) as far back as the 
wandering in the desert, and containing the inesti- 
mable relic of the stone tables of the Law, graven by 
Jehovah's own hand. Tradition had added to these 
Aaron's flowering rod and a golden vase of manna ; 
but when the ark was opened in Solomon's time, only 
the two stone tables were found in it. The lid of the 
chest was of solid gold, and was the " mercy-seat," or 

7 



154 SOLOMON. 

Jehovah's own resting-place, where he dwelt "be- 
tween the cherubim." These were winged figures of 
uncertain form,* whose outstretched wings met above 
its centre, and touched the opposite walls of the 
shrine. An apartment twice as long, containing the 
table of shew-bread, the incense-altar, and the sacred 
candlesticks, and a narrow porch,f completed what 
is properly known as the Temple, — a structure small 
in dimensions, but most lavishly decorated with carved 
and gilded wood, and furnished with costly and sump- 
tuous furniture for every office of the Hebrew wor- 
ship. This was Jehovah's house, into which none 
but his priests might enter. 

The levelled space around it was enclosed by walls 
and porches, the widest court of all being about a 
furlong square. Of its details no accurate notion 
can be had from the accounts preserved to us. It 
is enough to say, that apartments were reserved for 
a large number of attendants on the temple-service ; 
and that ample provision was made for sacrifices, 
or other public ceremonials, on the largest scale. 
The great brazen altar was thirty feet square and 
fifteen feet high. Its fire was kept always burning, 
and every facility was furnished for the despatch of 
the enormous number of victims sometimes slaugh- 
tered. In some of the many apartments were kept 
relics of the ancient tabernacle. Spacious courts 
were provided for the people, for women, and for 

* They were probably similar to the winged bulls, or eagle-headed 
figures, found in Assyria and Egypt. 

t Which the later account (2 Chron. iii. 4) converts into a tower near 
two hundred feet in height. 



THE TEMPLE. 155 

strangers. In the porches was ample space for 
walks, for conversation, and for teachers of wisdom 
with their classes. All was suitably adorned with 
colonnades, or single columns, with carved work, 
brazen utensils, prodigious vases of water, and sculp- 
tured forms of beasts. In short, while the temple 
proper was a building of moderate size and no 
architectural pretensions, remarkable chiefly for its 
rich Oriental symbolism, the marvellous wealth 
of its materials, and the sanctity of its relics, the 
entire structure, like a fort or castle, was as it were 
a city by itself, — a populous and busy little town, 
sacred by religious associations, and gorgeous with 
the perpetual pomp and splendour of the ritual. 

For seven years and a half it was in building, 
under such skilful hands, that, it is said, every stone 
was carved and matched beforehand to fit its place, 
a,nd not the blow of a hammer had to be struck in 
the whole long labour. When it was completed, a 
grand festival of fourteen days was proclaimed, to 
follow one of the yearly national feasts. The ark 
was carried in pomp from the city of David, and 
laid in its permanent resting-place in the shrine, 
beneath the outspread wings of the cherubim ; — 
the last of its history, for when or how it perished 
was never told.* " Two and twenty thousand oxen, 
and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep," were 

* Josiah is said (2 Chron. xxxv. 3) to have restored it to the 
shrine, whence it was taken by Manasseh; and a tradition is recorded 
(2 Maccabees ii. 5, 7) that Jeremiah, after the destruction of the tem- 
ple, hid it in a cave on Mount Moriah, where it will be found at the 
final restoration of the chosen people. 



156 SOLOMON. 

slain as "the sacrifice of peace-offerings," — that is, 
for food as well as worship, — while the great brazen 
altar was too little for the slaughter, and all the 
court was "hallowed" with the sacred blood. For 
this occasion, or in memory of it, was composed the 
noble prayer of Dedication ascribed to Solomon ; 
and it is further added, that when the prayer was 
spoken a flame from heaven consumed the sacrifice, 
and Jehovah himself, in visible glory, entered the 
sacred place, so that the priests could not go in by 
reason of the intolerable splendour. 

The debt of the Hebrew monarchy to the national 
religion and priesthood was now munificently paid. 
The holy orders were put upon such a footing 
that their existence was henceforth identified with 
that of the nation itself ; and a religious centre was 
established, to be forever the object of the people's 
most tenacious loyalty and faith. In every possible 
way — by song, by imposing ceremonial, by solemn 
reading of the Law, by gathering to the sacred fes- 
tivals — the temple at Jerusalem came to be asso- 
ciated with the enthusiastic and affectionate rever- 
ence of the Jewish mind. Long after the nation of 
Israel had passed away, when its very name became 
a reproach and its people a curse, the traditionary 
glories of its temple lived in the religious imagina- 
tion of Christendom, and formed the first link in that 
chain of association which made Jerusalem the holiest 
of cities, and the type of the invisible glories of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

On the footing of this magnificent establishment 
the Priesthood acquired new dignity, and the ritual 



PRIESTHOOD AND RITUAL. 157 

was modelled upon a corresponding scale. It is to 
this period of the history, therefore, that we must 
ascribe the more full development of the Levitical 
institutions which make the chief burden of the 
Hebrew code. What had been gradually moulded 
out of old tribal customs, or adopted from the prac- 
tice of neighbouring religions and sustained by the 
spontaneous reverence of the people, became now an 
Institution, fixed and upheld by public authority. 
The sacred order that waited on the sanctuary made 
a sort of Ecclesiastical Court, or tribunal to define 
the rules and conditions of all matters pertaining to 
religion. The Book of " Leviticus " contains the 
substance, or the earlier form, of the code of ecclesi- 
astical law, and along with it a few traditionary relics 
and customs of the earliest time.* A foundation 
was laid for that prodigious aftergrowth of tradition, 
which, through Talmud, Cabbala, and the doctrine 
of Scribes and Pharisees, so overlaid and spoiled the 
native quality of the Hebrew faith. The form was 
more and more separated from the spirit. The pom- 
pous ceremonial became an enormous scheme of sym- 
bolism to the more reflective, a vain and supersti- 
tious show to those who looked at it outwardly, a 
narrow and enslaving formalism to those who would 
win merit by obedience, a fruitful source of scep- 
ticism to the critical temper of a later age. The 
hearty reverence of the most religious portion of the 
people could never be thoroughly identified with the 

* This book contains no historical matter, properly speaking ; only 
in two or three instances a narrative form is given to some ritual enact- 
ment. 



158 SOLOMON. 

elaborate ritual or the requisitions of the priestly 
order. The more gorgeous the public show, the 
more removed from the simplicity of faith that wor- 
shipped in secret, and from the vivid, earnest, relig- 
ious sense which kindles the souls of men as fire out 
of heaven. The founding of Solomon's Temple and 
the perfecting of its ritual became the first symptom 
of a separation of the form from the life. His reign 
discloses the first marked tokens of the prophetic as 
opposed to the priestly order. The germ was sown, 
and had already taken root, of that antagonism which 
displayed itself so fiercely in the time of Christ. 

The entire system of Solomon's public works was 
carried out in the same spirit that founded his state- 
religion. All were for the enlarging and adorning 
of the royal city, for the confirming or ostentatious 
exhibiting of the royal authority. The labour of thir- 
teen years was spent in the construction of separate 
palaces for himself and the queen, ostensibly to do 
honour to the dignity of his Egyptian bride ; or, if a 
religious motive must be assigned, in order that she, 
pagan by birth and faith, might not dwell in the 
sacred city which David built. The king's house 
was greatly superior in extent, and only inferior in 
costly display, to the temple itself. A colonnade, 
with steps and galleries cut in the solid rock, was 
made to connect the two, that by a royal way Sol- 
omon might pass to the sanctuary to perform those 
priestly services which in old time made part of the 
office of a king. 

Nothing could exceed the sumptuous splendour of 
the royal establishment, as shown in the details which 



ROYAL ESTABLISHMENT. 159 

have been preserved. All the vessels of the palace 
were of pure gold. As for silver, it was " nothing 
accounted of in the days of Solomon." A most costly 
equipage of horses and chariots was quartered in the 
several cities, or kept in attendance at the capital. 
Water was brought at great expense, for fountains to 
adorn the city, or for the uses of the temples, from 
sources so remote as the high grounds of Bethlehem ; 
and, whether by nature or art, the lofty and rugged 
eminences of the capital were so faithfully supplied, 
that, in all the distress of the sieges it underwent, the 
torture of drought was never felt. The pool of Si- 
loam, the healing intermittent spring of Bethesda, 
and an abundant fountain in the temple-court, sup- 
plied from the adjacent heights, were among the 
most conspicuous advantages of this now stately cap- 
ital. Where the deep valley skirting the hills of 
Zion and Moriah spreads and slopes more gently 
towards the east, a royal garden, or, in the Oriental 
tongue, a paradise, was laid out in keeping with the 
luxury of the sumptuous court.* 

To crown the whole, as the most brilliant exhibi- 
tion of the royal magnificence, he had a seraglio of a 
thousand women, seven hundred of them being of 
eminent birth, princes' daughters, as they are called, 
retained, perhaps, as honourable hostages, and as signs 
of his wide-spread peaceable alliances. 

Nor was the personal fame of the sovereign any 
way unworthy of these surroundings. It is his true 
and undisputed glory to have contributed as largely 
to the forming of his people's mind and taste, as his 

* See Ecclesiastes ii. 4-9. 



160 SOLOMON. 

father had done to their character and national 
strength. His wisdom seemed to the popular rev- 
erence to justify the Divine promise, " I have given 
thee a wise and understanding heart, so that there 
was none like thee before thee, neither after thee 
shall any arise like unto thee ; " and it is added, 
" God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding ex- 
ceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the 
sand that is on the sea-shore ; and Solomon's wisdom 
excelled the wisdom of all children of the east coun- 
try, and all the wisdom of Egypt ; for he was wiser 
than all men, and his fame was in all nations round 
about. And he spake three thousand proverbs, and 
his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake 
of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even 
unto the hyssop that springe th out of the wall : he 
spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping 
things, and of fishes. And there came of all people 
to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of 
the earth which had heard of his wisdom." * 

The fond and exaggerating style of this report tes- 
tifies to the powerful impression left by the new and 
elaborate culture of the reign of Solomon, and it is 
justified on the whole by what appears of the impulse 
which he personally gave to the intellectual progress 
of his time. Proverbial philosophy and the rudi- 
ments of natural history — both of moderate rank in 
the scale of intellectual achievement — are the de- 
partments characteristically assigned to him. The 
friendly contests of wisdom, in which tradition re- 
ports him 'to have surpassed the king of Tyre and the 

* 1 Kings iv. 29-34. 



WISDOM. 161 

queen of Sheba, consisted in the pleasant play of wit, 
the guessing of riddles, and the neat and sagacious 
detecting of devices made to baffle his ingenuity.* 
The pointed turns of expression, the happy antithesis, 
the rounding of a sententious phrase, so as to give 
the effect of wit, are qualities in which such an age 
delights, and are plentifully shown in the specimens 
of his proverbs which have come down to us, remind- 
ing one of the style of intellectual play at the court of 
Charlemagne. A higher degree of cultivation and a 
more various stimulus of the intellect distinguished 
this golden age of the Hebrew history ; but for the 
more strongly defined and characteristic qualities of 
the national mind we must go to an earlier or later 
period, — to the odes of Deborah and David, the fer- 
vid religious poetry and eloquence of Isaiah. 

The same cosmopolitan temper which initiated the 
commercial enterprise, and made both the " wisdom" 
and magnificence of Solomon's reign, set him most 
widely apart from the general type of Hebrew char- 
acter. If it was shown in splendid works that ri- 
valled Egyptian grandeur and Tyrian wealth, in a 
temple and ritual of unsurpassed gorgeousness, in 
the luxury and culture of a period of peace, it was 
shown, too, in acts which sundered him widely from 
the spirit of his people, cut short his dynasty, and 
divided the realm. Religion and liberty are the 
two main sources of a nation's collective life. Both 
were held to with a tenacious and jealous fondness, 
through all periods of their history, by the people of 

* Of these the most noted was his distinguishing a garland of real 
from one of artificial flowers, by admitting a swarm of honey-bees. 

K 



162 SOLOMON. 

Israel. Both were alike invaded by the encroaching 
centralism and the cosmopolite spirit of the king. 
The close of his reign exhibits the humiliating weak- 
ness of his decline from the national liberties and 
faith, and the popular disaffection resulting from his 
arbitrary exercise of power. 

" For it came to pass," says the simple style of the 
narrative, " that when Solomon was old, his wives 
turned away his heart after other gods." It was 
politic in him doubtless, or so he thought, to indulge 
the religious customs of his foreign women of the 
harem ; and to some it has appeared as if it were 
only a prudent toleration, like that which is the rule 
of policy in an intelligent modern state. But relig- 
ious culture was not large or deep enough then, and 
could not be for many ages, to establish toleration 
on enlightened principle. The superstitions of alien 
tribes were not only of a gross and revolting, but of 
an aggressive sort. Some of them were licentious, 
and some of them were cruel ; most, probably, both. 
If openly practised, they would certainly corrupt the 
popular morals, degrade the general apprehension 
respecting worship, and result in practical disloyalty 
to the spirit of the Hebrew institutions. Thus they 
were a direct invasion of the national character and 
faith ; and, in this most decisive way, virtual trea- 
son against the state. The more wonder that they 
should have been due to the very man who so em- 
phatically warned the Hebrew youth against the de- 
vices of " the strange woman which flattereth with 
her tongue." 

That Solomon himself took that backward step in 



IDOLATRY. 163 

religious culture, and became a worshipper of idols, 
is not positively said. That he shared in the bloody 
and horrid rites so revolting to his people's better 
sense seems hardly credible. At any rate, that pop- 
ular sense made him responsible for the corruption 
which presently appeared in the national character 
and faith ; and it was told of him, that he " went 
after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and 
after Milcom [Moloch], the abomination of the Am- 
monites, and built an high place for Chemosh, the 
abomination of Moab, in the hill that was before 
Jerusalem." It was seen how false was that worldly 
policy of his which would purchase foreign favour at 
the price of his own people's fidelity ; still more, how 
fatal was that despotic and alien custom of polygamy, 
so abhorrent to the best sense of the Hebrew mind, 
though the constant sign and type of Oriental magnifi- 
cence. His numerous alliances, purchased at such 
a price, might gain a few years of deceitful peace, 
but were laying by the seeds of mischief for his suc- 
cessors. The priesthood might be loyal, for that was 
a royal institution and dependency ; * but the pro- 
phetic spirit, which was but the intense expression 
and representative of the popular religious spirit, was 
roused to a resentful and settled hostility. 

And the grandeur of his public works entailed its 
heavy cost. For twenty years together he had em- 
ployed vast companies of men f in the cedar-forests 
and quarries of Lebanon, to procure timber and lime- 

* See 2 Chron. viii. 15. 

t In all one hundred and fifty thousand, with three thousand six 
hundred overseers, according to 2 Chron. v. 13-18. 



164 SOLOMON. 

stone, which were sent round in floats to Joppa ; and 
had subsidized the king of Tyre to furnish skilful 
artisans. The supply of food for all these labourers 
was a separate and very heavy tax.* Costly and 
unprofitable enterprises of desert traffic were a drain 
upon his treasury, to say nothing of the burdensome 
charge of outposts and garrisons in unfriendly dis- 
tricts. These outlays were a severe strain upon the 
financial strength of a little state like Israel. We 
must reckon, besides, the enormous and wasteful 
establishment of royal houses and gardens, the main- 
taining of great troops of idle hands, the state equip- 
age of horses and chariots,! and the lavish magnifi- 
cence of the temple-worship. All had to be paid for 
by the taxing of a scattered and agricultural people, 
only beginning to be a commercial one. Successful 
trade might replenish the royal coffers, or a lucky 
stroke of policy or conquest might defer the threaten- 
ing crisis of an invasion ; but there was a steady 
drain upon the energies and resources of the state. 

The expedients which Solomon devised to defer the 
evil day only aggravated the mischiefs of his mistaken 
policy. Not retrenchment, but heavier taxation, is 
the usual method a government takes in dealing with 

* Compare Herodotus, II. 125. 

t These were brought at great cost from Egypt (1 Kings x. 29), and 
were among the standing articles of trade, to supply the neighbouring 
regions. " The feelings of the pious," says Newman, " boded no good 
to Israel from this new force ; and when, in the next reign, Egypt 
proved to be a victorious enemy, and the cavalry a useless arm of 
defence, it probably became a fixed traditional principle with the pro- 
phetical body, that this proud force was outlandish, heathenish, and 
unbelieving." 



OPPKESSIONS. 165 

like embarrassments. A corps of tax-gatherers and 
purveyors, changed every month and set over every 
district of the land, exacted food for his establishment 
and revenue for his wasted treasury. Following the 
same centralizing policy which abolished the ancient 
Provinces of France, he merged the twelve tribes of 
Israel in twelve Departments, managed by as many 
administrators of finance.* Two of his own sons-in- 
law were in this ungracious but lucrative office ; and 
this no doubt helped to widen the breach between 
the nation at large and the house of David. And 
for one other expedient, more humiliating, and base 
than all the rest, he yielded up to Hiram, on con- 
sideration of a large advance of money, including 
perhaps payment of arrears, a border district, com- 
prising twenty villages. f This vile act of arbitrary 
power shows the degrading straits to which the bril- 
liant monarchy of Solomon was now reduced. How 
the popular feeling resented the trade and sale is 
shown in the story which went abroad, that the 
ancient name of Cabul, or worthless, expressed the 
disgust of Hiram when he came to view his bargain ; 
and the later account J would even have it, that 
Solomon not only outwitted his ingenious ally, but 
quietly reannexed the province, proceeded to build 
up the villages, and " caused the children of Israel 
to dwell there." 

The two strongest points of the national character, 
or prejudice, were thus wantonly affronted. A large 
portion of the people were thoroughly alienated from 

* See 1 Kings, chap. iv. J 2 Chronicles viii. 2. 

t 1 Kings ix. 10-14. 



166 SOLOMON. 

the reigning family. The lustre of David's name, 
and the early glories of Solomon, kept back any out- 
break for a season ; but symptoms were menacing 
even during his lifetime. What was worst of all, the 
intense religious feeling of the people was alarmed. 
Now for the first time appear prophets of eminent 
name whose influence was thrown against the kingly 
power, leagued as that was with the priesthood. Saul 
had defied the entire religious party among the peo- 
ple, and prophet and priest combined had broken his 
power and transferred it to a worthier hand. Now 
that class of men known as prophets shared the popu- 
lar resentment. A large party were apparently dis- 
posed to try once more the dangerous experiment of 
undermining the people's loyalty, and bringing about 
another change of administration. A change must 
soon come, at any rate ; and the more zealous were 
disposed to hasten it, even at the hazard of a revolu- 
tion. 

Jeroboam was a young man of marked energy 
and activity, one of the directors of the public works 
at Jerusalem. Solomon noted his valuable qualities, 
and promoted him to be governor of the central dis- 
trict, where the disaffection was greatest, — Ephraim 
resenting the loss of tribal privilege, and nursing 
the ancient feud against the rival house of Judah. 
As he went to assume his new charge, the prophet 
Ahijah seized the occasion to prompt the young man 
to open revolt. He snatched his mantle, tore it in 
twelve pieces, and gave him ten, — signifying that, 
of the parted kingdom, ten tribes would be pledged 
to follow him. Such an open act roused Solomon's 



REHOBOAM. 167 

suspicion ; and, to avoid a premature struggle, Jero- 
boam fled to Egypt. Shishak (or Sheslionk) was king 
there now, of a new dynasty, and unfriendly to the 
monarchy of Jerusalem. With him Jeroboam re- 
mained in security, abiding his time. 

At the first news of the old king's death, which 
happened shortly after, he hastened back to his 
native village to be ready for coming events. The 
time was now ripe for revolution. It was only pre- 
cipitated by the blind obstinacy and folly of Reho- 
boam. No popular congress or diet made a regular 
part of the government ; only at rare occasions were 
the people able to give voice, shape, and force to 
their collective will. They had borne their burden 
the more patiently, waiting for the Convention that 
should ratify the claim of the new king. They met 
at Shechem, the venerable patriarchal home of Is- 
rael, and here demanded a redress of grievances. 
Jeroboam was their spokesman. The bitter insolence 
of Rehoboam's answer has become proverbial : " My 
little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins ; 
my father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to 
your yoke : my father chastised you with whips, but 
I will chastise you with scorpions." Then was heard 
once more the terrible war-cry that had rung in 
David's ear at the dissension of the tribes after 
Absalom's death : " What portion have we in David ? 
neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. To 
your tents, Israel ! Now, David, guard well thy 
own house ! " 

And so, by a steady and intelligible train of 
causes, the short-lived monarchy of Israel was sun- 



168 SOLOMON. 

dered. Henceforth, the unity of the Hebrew race 
is only ideal, — the sharing in one glorious memory 
and one undying hope. The larger fragment of the 
nation endured a troubled existence for rather more 
than two hundred and fifty years, till it was swal- 
lowed up by the grasping Assyrian realm, and the 
" ten lost tribes " disappeared forever from human 
history. The little kingdom of Judah, adhering to 
the capital, and cherishing the ritual and culture 
identified with its past era of prosperity and glory, 
preserved the line of historical descent unbroken. 
It continued an independent state for about four 
centuries; during which it gave birth to the later 
sublime embodiments of Hebrew thought and faith. 
With invincible tenacity, even after their conquest 
and captivity, the Jews kept their title to the Holy 
Land till a thousand years after the division ; and 
to this very day their sons are looking patiently for 
the restoring of the kingdom of Israel in far more 
than its ancient gloiy. 

The popular mind, though it could not trace the 
causes, felt the necessity, that led to this trying and 
fatal event. " This thing is from Jehovah," they 
said ; and yielding easily to the counsel of She- 
maiah, they forebore to contend against one another, 
and went home with a heavy heart, to live as a 
divided and alienated people. 

From the course things had taken, this unhappy 
division was clearly a necessity, — as they reverently 
called it, a divine necessity. The fault of Solomon 
was, that he had not sagacity to foresee or wisdom 
to provide against it. The elements were wanting 



CHARACTER. 169 

in him of a robust and manly character, of an edu- 
cated will. His intellectual eminence was only that 
which comes from carrying out, in larger develop- 
ment and more elaborate culture, the elements of 
thought common to all average minds. His knowl- 
edge was extensive, his range of observation great ; 
but, save in the plain ethics of every-day life, he 
never ascended above a low or medium plane of 
thought. There was no vigour of the higher faculty 
in him, no practical statesmanship, no moral earnest- 
ness, no intellectual grasp. In the main tendency 
of his mind he only drifted with the common tide, 
and his wisdom was all the more admired that it 
was wisdom which all could comprehend. In a 
position eminently demanding the exercise of the 
loftier and more generous faculties, he showed only 
a mean and ordinary soul. 

It would seem to have required no consummate 
and superhuman wisdom to meet the problem of 
his time more worthily, — at least to avoid his fatal 
error. He had mental activity, but on a low plane ; 
political talent, but rather of a subtile than compre- 
hensive sort ; ambition of splendour and national 
greatness, but no large popular sympathies. His 
was a short-sighted policy, a wilful, petulant, des- 
potic rule. Unless he had the deliberate intention 
to absorb and crush the liberties of his people in one 
inexorable, absolute, central rule, and so was a traitor 
to the genius and destinies of the nation, and only 
failed for want of power in a design as profligate as 
it was able, — unless we save his intellect at the 
expense of his character, or his subtle policy at the 

8 



170 SOLOMON. 

expense of both, — we must regard him as weak and 
incapable at bottom, a man unfit for his station or 
his trust. 

In so judging him, we should only take from his 
name its false glitter, and rate Solomon among ordi- 
nary men. It is only that he had not that rare 
strength of will, that inspired loftiness of motive, 
which would break through the network of circum- 
stance. It is only that he did not reach the moral 
elevation, where his naturally active and fertile mind 
might work by the guiding of that God whom his fa- 
thers knew better than he. It is not to condemn him 
personally to say that that critical time found not 
its providential man in him. A Solon would have 
been glorious precisely where Solomon was most 
weak. He did not govern, but yielded to the baser 
tendencies of his age. He followed to the uttermost 
the path that happened to be open to him. He 
developed fully the style of culture that humoured 
the temper of the time. He magnified the glory 
of the kingdom at the expense of its liberty and 
quiet. His rule was fast tending to an unmitigated 
and oppressive absolutism ; and the nation was only 
saved from that at the cost of its unity, its outward 
vigour, and ultimately its existence. 



VI. THE KINGS. 



THE entire duration of the Hebrew monarchy was 
not far from five hundred years.* Of this period 
a century is occupied with the reign of the first three 
kings, down to the division of the kingdom. The re- 
mainder consists of three unequal periods : first, of 
rather more than a century (B. C. 985-883), to the 
bloody revolution of Jehu, which shattered both the 
royal houses, and led to a complete reconstruction 
of the monarchy ; second, of a hundred and sixty- 
four years (B. 0. 883-719), to the destruction of 
Samaria and the dispersion of the ten tribes ; third, 
.of about a hundred and thirty years (B. C. 719-586), 
to the capture of Jerusalem and the carrying away 
into Babylon. The first of these periods is marked by 
hostilities between Israel and Judah, merged finally 
in their alliance against Damascus ; the second, by 
the struggles against Syria, followed by the conquer- 
ing advance of the Assyrians ; the third by violent 
religious contentions in the state of Judah, until it 
was finally overthrown by the Chaldsean conquest. 
The extinction of Hebrew nationality is just ten 
years later than the great constitutional reform of 

* This is the reckoning of Ewald, from which Newman deducts thirty 
years, placing Solomon's death in 955. 



172 THE KINGS. 

Solon, — the first well marked and important event 
of the political history of Greece (B. C. 596). 

I. The revolt of the ten tribes was a protest of the 
old Hebrew spirit against the system of religious 
and political centralization, which was already carried 
to such a length by Solomon. The blow was struck 
at the instigation of the prophets, representatives of 
the popular instinct of local freedom and religious 
independence. On the one hand, a deep-rooted 
jealousy had grown up against the increasing power 
and despotic temper of the monarchy, which in so 
many respects shocked the habits and moral feeling 
of the people ; and, on the other hand, the organized 
priesthood of Jerusalem roused the antipathy of those 
in whom the fire of the antique faith burned most 
vehemently. The people had been wonted from of 
old to the free worship of Jehovah on hill-tops and 
in the open air. Reasons of permanence, security, 
and uniformity might be urged in favour of the tem- 
ple ritual, and the splendid establishment of the cap- 
ital ; but it was hard to forego the immemorial rights 
and tribal privileges of the rural sanctuaries ; and 
even in Judah it was not till the great reformation 
achieved by Hezekiah that the " high places " were 
removed, and the worship of the brazen serpent was 
abolished.* Appealing to this confirmed popular 
sentiment, Jeroboam established at once two district 
sanctuaries, at Dan and Bethel, with symbolic images 
of Egyptian device, which the prophets called in 
derision his golden calves ; and when this irregu- 
lar local worship had degenerated, and allied itself 

* 2 Kings xviii. 4. 



ISRAEL. 173 

with corrupt foreign superstitions, his title was known 
as by a proverb among the more religious of the 
nation, as " the son of Nebat, who made Israel to 
sin." 

The protest against the centralizing and despotic 
policy of the monarchy seemed at first likely to be 
completely successful. It enlisted the popular senti- 
ment, for it promised a return to the spirit of the 
elder Hebrew institutions, — the " good old times " 
of the Lawgiver and Judges. The deep-seated local 
feeling and jealous independence by which the race 
had been so strongly marked from the first seemed 
in this revolt to fortify itself anew. The first patri- 
archal home in Canaan, the seat of Samuel's pro- 
phetic and of Saul's regal power, the abode of Joshua, 
the great conqueror, and of Gideon, the champion 
of the nation's independence, and the track of the 
mythic migration under Jacob, the Prince of God, — 
all were included in the region that now threw off the 
hated supremacy of Judah. And so it claimed the 
proud patriarchal name of Israel, — changed (some- 
times in scorn, sometimes in tenderness) to Ephraim, 
when the frontier tribes were pressed by invaders, 
and not much more than that citadel of power re- 
mained. It held sway over most of the conquests 
that made up the empire of David and Solomon, — 
except the great tributary, Damascus, which had 
revolted successfully even in Solomon's time. The 
upper Philistine coast, the country east of Jordan, as 
far south as Moab and the Dead Sea, even Bethel and 
Jericho, that bordered so closely on the capital, were 
kept in the hands of this more powerful division. 



174 THE KINGS. 

And for many years it seemed no hopeless ambition 
to recover the strongholds of Judah, and extend the 
proud name of Israel over the whole territory claimed 
as the heritage of the race. 

Meanwhile the smaller kingdom held itself on the 
defensive. The struggle to retain its hold upon 
the revolted district was at once given up as hope- 
less, and Judah began to gather slowly the elements 
of its isolated strength. Its first rallying force was 
seen in the thronging back to Jerusalem of the levit- 
ical body,* including, doubtless, a large portion of 
the more serious-minded and better-cultured of the 
nation, who were thoroughly disgusted with the law- 
less and retrograde temper shown in " the prov- 
inces." And then were seen the immense advan- 
tages of a firm and compacted organization. Jeru- 
salem had already become the peculiar home of na- 
tional memories and worship. The house of David 
had in its favour the habitual loyalty of near a 
century of successful and imposing rule. By far 
the greatest part of the intellectual culture, as well 
as religious prestige, was gathered about the court 
and capital. Here was a firm centre and a vigorous 
root of the national vitality. The region itself is 
one less tempting to the cupidity of an invader. 
While, accordingly, the larger kingdom was almost 
from the first distracted by the most violent feuds ; 
while three royal houses were cut off in the second 
generation, and of the longest enduring every indi- 
vidual perished by a violent death ; while the relig- 
ious party, headed by Elijah and-Elisha, was in almost 

* 2 Chronicles xi. 14. 



JUDAH AND ISKAEL. 175 

perpetual contention with the kings, and was at length 
bloodily extinguished, — in Judah, on the other hand, 
the sanctuary became the rallying-point of loyalty and 
faith ; those institutions were matured whose power- 
ful influence still outlives the downfall of the nation ; 
the larger part of the Hebrew Scriptures were com- 
posed, constituting so marked an element in the 
literature of the world ; and the Hebrew religious 
culture culminated in the splendid series of the 
Prophets. 

It was not long before the causes that resulted in 
so striking a contrast were seen to be at work. The 
religious party that had instigated the revolt flattered 
itself, doubtless, with the prospect of being para- 
mount in the new state ; but it quickly appeared that 
it could never be anything more than a party, and 
generally one in opposition to the royal power. The 
fortune of the kingdom showed a return to " what 
was worst in the policy of Saul, with no delivering 
David." An able man like Jeroboam, whose notions 
of state policy and state religion were got from his 
experiences under Solomon and at the Egyptian 
court, was not likely to put himself in the hands of 
what he would regard as a fanatical sect, however 
indebted to it for the first germ of his power. It was 
an unscrupulous secular ambition that guided him, 
not any serious design of restoring the fond ideal of 
a theocracy. He shared the passion for royal splen- 
dour that had built the edifices of Jerusalem and 
Memphis, and for that despotic absolutism which 
was the only type he knew of monarchy. For rea- 
sons of policy, he transferred his capital first to 



176 THE KINGS. 

Peniel, beyond the Jordan, and then to Tirzah, whose 
beauty became proverbial as a rival to Jerusalem.* 
Ahab's ivory palace at Jezreel and the splendid hill- 
town of Samaria were later monuments of that taste 
for regal magnificence which was manifest from the 
very beginning of the Israelite monarchy. 

An aggressive and military policy, too, marked the 
first years of the sundered state. An angry jealousy 
prevailed between Israel and Judah, so that the story 
of two or three of the early reigns is of continual 
war between them.f Shishak, king of Egypt, as 
ally of Jeroboam, menaced Jerusalem with a formid- 
able invasion, and carried away, for spoil or tribute, 
"all" the magnificent gold furnishing of both tem- 
ple and palace, which had to be replaced by brass. 
Baasha — who got the power by the massacre of all 
Jeroboam's family two years after his death — fol- 
lowed still more vigorously this hostile policy. He 
seized the frontier town of Ramah, and made it a 
military post to harass the traders or travellers of 
Judah, till Asa, the grandson of Rehoboam, took 
the richest remaining treasures of the temple and 
capital to muster the Syrian forces from Damascus, 
— seducing them from their alliance with Baasha, — 
and so forced him to quit the fortress, which was 
instantly demolished. Thus the first three reigns on 
either side exhibit the two kingdoms as bitter and 
jealous rivals, willing even to employ alien forces for 
each other's ruin. This desperate and fatal course 

* See Canticles vi. 4. 

t Jeroboam is said (2 Chronicles xiii. 17) to have been defeated with 
the loss of 500,000 in a single battle. 



PB0PHETS OF ISRAEL. 177 

was not discontinued till Asa's son, Jehoshaphat. saw 
how much more the Syrian power was to be dreaded ; 
and then, too late, by his disastrous league with Ahab, 
he endeavoured to make good the irretrievable error 
of the past. 

The secular and vindictive temper shown by the 
monarchs of the northern kingdom could not but 
bring bitter disappointment and exasperation to the 
party that had prompted the revolution. It is re- 
lated * how a prophet was divinely sent from Judah, 
with a message of doom to the apostate house of Jer- 
oboam, — a doom frightfully accomplished in Baa- 
sha's massacre of every one who shared his blood ; a 
message of such fearful moment, that the returning 
prophet was torn in pieces by a lion for staying so 
much as to taste of food. And Ahijah, the first coun- 
sellor of the great revolt, bitterly deploring in old age 
and blindness the recreancy of the man he had select- 
ed as champion of the ancient faith, denounced a 
similar fatal message, when the wife of Jeroboam 
came to consult him concerning the sickness of her 
child. The religious party in Israel was becoming 
deeply alienated from the sovereign power ; and a 
struggle was impending, in which that party, after 
displaying every extremity of heroism in endurance, 
and of even fierce and desperate resource in retalia- 
tion, was finally absorbed or suppressed, and Israel 
was left, to all intents and purposes, a heathen king- 
dom till its fall. 

The crisis of this religious struggle was brought on 
by the tyrannical and persecuting temper of the third 

* 1 KingSj chap. xiii. 
8* l 



178 THE KINGS. 

reigning family, that of Omri. The son of Baasha 
was killed at a drunken revel by Zimri, a court 
officer, who, after a week's play at despotism, burned 
the palace in despair over his own head. After a 
few years' struggle with Tibni, (who perhaps held the 
territory east of Jordan,) Omri had become both 
avenger and successor of the fallen house. The 
Philistines had been troublesome on one side, and 
the realm distracted on the other by civil feuds ; and 
to fortify himself, he renewed the old alliance with 
the king of Tyre, and took Jezebel, the spirited and 
beautiful Phoenician princess, as wife to his son 
Ahab. 

Ahab was a weak-minded, kind-tempered, well- 
meaning man, ruled completely by the vindictive and 
imperious temper of his wife. She made it her busi- 
ness to defy, insult, and if possible suppress the na- 
tional religious spirit of the people. Her father Eth- 
baal had been a priest, which may partly account 
for the fervours of her religious rage. To what 
length she carried her persecution we do not know, 
nor what especial provocation may have induced it ; 
only, that out of what was meant as an entire mas- 
sacre of the body of prophets, Obadiah, a court 
officer, hid a hundred, at the hazard of his life, in two 
caves ; and that when Elijah fled to Sinai, he thought 
himself the only survivor of the slaughter. In rivalry 
of the great sanctuary of the Hebrew worship, she 
built a gorgeous temple to the sun-god Baal, and had 
it attended by four hundred and fifty priests. It was 
apparently to insult and override in every way the 
popular feeling she despised, that she violated the 



ELIJAH. 179 

sacred common law of the realm ; causing Naboth, 
whose vineyard Ahab would annex to the royal gar- 
dens, to be stoned on a got-up charge of treason, and 
so confiscating the coveted estate. 

Only one man was bold enough to confront stead- 
ily this storm of tyranny, — a man whose real influ- 
ence and power are imperfectly represented in the 
splendid series of acts ascribed to him. The remark- 
able episode in the meagre annals of the kingdom 
which constitutes the personal history of Elijah and 
his successor affords the most valuable picture of the 
manners and popular feeling of the period. It is 
almost the only glimpse we have of the body of men 
known as the " prophets " of the northern kingdom ; 
and, however perplexing in its details, it must be 
accepted as their historical legacy. It presents 
a combination, almost unique, of miraculous acts 
and bold personal adventure ; and the period it de- 
scribes may well be called the heroic age of Hebrew 
prophecy. 

Elijah is the principal person of this religious epic, 
— a man who, for the boldness and splendour of his 
acts, his agency in restoring the worship of Jehovah, 
and the mystery of his final disappearance, has been 
placed even on the same high eminence with Moses, 
unapproachable by any other. In a time of drought 
and famine, which he predicts, ravens feed him by a 
solitary brook. When that dries up, he is supported 
by the unspent meal of a poor widow of Zarephath, 
whose dead child he brings to life. Demanding an 
interview with the king, and a public controversy 
with the priests of Baal, he convicts them by the 



180 THE KINGS. 

stupendous miracle of the kindling of the sacrifice 
on Mount Carmel ; and the false priests are slaugh- 
tered by the popular vengeance, in retaliation for the 
massacre of Jehovah's people. While the rain-storm 
is gathering which puts a period to the long distress, 
he runs before the king's chariot all the way to the 
capital ; then, at the threats of Jezebel, we find him 
as suddenly beyond the southern frontier of Judah. 
Strengthened by miraculous food, he fasts forty days 
in the bleak peninsula of Sinai ; and then comes that 
noble scene, in which God reveals himself, not in the 
rushing wind, or earthquake, or fire, but in the " still 
small voice." He is sought after Ahab's death by 
his son Ahaziah, who was crushed fatally by a fall 
from the palace window, that his prophetic skill may 
tell the chances of life and death ; and twice a com- 
pany of fifty men, with their commander, perish by 
fire out of heaven, to insure his inviolability. Fi- 
nally, when the season of his labour is over, he is 
taken up in a fiery chariot, in full sight of Elisha, 
upon whom his mantle falls as his successor.* 

The acts ascribed to Elisha are a series somewhat 
similar, as if a certain parallelism had been observed 
in them. The chief difference is, that they denote a 
career less wild and lonely, but of far greater political 
importance, and greater variety of human interest. 
Several of Elisha' s miracles are wrought in the ser- 
vice of a community or school of younger prophets. 
He has a permanent home in the dwelling of the 

* The only allusion to him in Chronicles is the mention of a letter 
sent to the king of Judah, after the supposed time of his ascension. 
(2 Chron. xxi. 12.) 



ELISHA. 181 

wealthy Shunamite. He accompanies the army of 
Judah in an attack upon the Moabites, and miracu- 
lously obtains water in the parched soil of the desert 
for the distressed camp. Twice his foresight was the 
means of saving Israel from the Syrians, and it was 
by his agency their armies were alarmed from the 
siege of Samaria. For fifty years he was held in 
singular honour by nearly every king who reigned 
in Israel. On his death-bed Jehoash hailed him " the 
chariot and horseman of Israel," in testimony of his 
powerful championship ; and long after his death his 
bones restored to life a dead body that chanced to be 
placed in contact with them. The esteem in which 
he was held reached as far as Damascus, where we 
find him, on a friendly visit, predicting the king's 
decease and the coming calamities of his country ; 
and among his miracles is recorded the healing of 
Naaman, a Syrian officer, of his leprosy. 

But the political agency of Elisha was most decisive 
in this, — that he brought about that bloody revolu- 
tion in which Jehu extinguished the idolatrous fam- 
ily of Omri, and closed the first period of the Israelite 
monarchy. 

The reign of Ahab had been weak and ineffectual . 
State power being utterly divorced from popular 
faith or feeling, the kingdom appears to have been 
in a perpetual decline. The close of the first century 
of the monarchy was marked by defeat and shame. 
Damascus, whose power had been courted by each 
of the kingdoms in their short-sighted rivalry, was 
beginning now to overshadow both. Samaria itself 
had been beleaguered and reduced to the last straits 



182 THE KINGS. 

by famine ; and two women wrangled about the 
keeping of a horrid agreement, to kill and share the 
bodies of their babes for food. The territory east of 
Jordan was hard pressed by Syria. To defend it, 
Jehoshaphat, whose wise and vigorous rule had re- 
stored the prosperity of Judah,* formed a close alli- 
ance with Ahab ; and to screen him from personal 
danger had in the last and fatal battle put on his 
armour, while Ahab was apparalled as a private 
soldier. But Micaiah's bold prophecy of disaster, 
spoken in a gathering of four hundred prophets who 
all predicted that the alliance would be triumphant,! 
proved true. Ahab was killed by a chance arrow- 
shot, and his body borne away by the retreating 
force. His elder son Ahaziah died of his fall (before 
alluded to), and Jehoram was badly wounded in the 
same disastrous war in which his father perished. 
Then Elisha, despairing of the kingdom unless some 
desperate blow were struck against the apostate and 
ill-fated house, sent by a swift messenger and anoint- 
ed Jehu, who was now commander of the army, com- 
missioning him to take vengeance on those that had 
dealt so cruelly with the faithful. 

Jehu was a hasty, crafty, unscrupulous man ; one 
not to hesitate in fulfilling such a commission, even 
to the horror of those who had given it to his hands, 
— if, indeed, the exasperated temper of the perse- 
cuted party would shrink at any degree of vengeance. 
He struck his blow without delay. By swift relays 
of horses he drove to the palace at Jezreel, met 

* See 2 Chron., chap. xvii. 

t See the remarkable narrative in 1 Kings, chap. xxii. 



JEHU. — HAZAEL. 183 

Jehoram in Naboth's vineyard, struck him with a 
javelin through the back as he turned to fly ; then 
gratuitously slew the king of Judah, Ahaziah, grand- 
son of Jehoshaphat, who happened to be with him. 
He next ordered Jezebel to be flung out of the palace- 
window, and trampled her under his horses' feet; then 
directed the massacre of seventy of Ahab's kindred, 
and of forty-two who were coming unsuspiciously 
from Judah ; and ended by enticing a great crowd 
of Baal-worshippers to the temple, under pretence of 
solemn sacrifice, and slaughtering them all. This 
frightful series of massacres stifled for the present 
the alien worship, and introduced a new period of 
seeming, though transient, vigour. But the nation 
could not easily recover from the guilt and terror 
of such a season ; and " in those days," says the an- 
nalist, " Jehovah began to cut Israel short." Hazael 
of Damascus, whose murder-purchased rule Elisha is 
related to have foretold to him, fulfilled the predic- 
tion of cruelly ravaging the land. The people in 
their distress were driven from their old pastoral 
courses, and no longer " dwelt in tents as before- 
time ; " while their military equipment was beaten 
to pieces and made " like the dust by threshing." 
From Israel were wrested Gilead and Bashan, or 
almost all that lay eastward of the Jordan ; and 
Hazael was only bought off from Jerusalem by gifts. 
It was not till half a century later that Samaria re- 
covered for a while the external security it had lost. 

II. Thus the civil and religious forces of the north- 
ern kingdom had nearly annihilated each other in 
their long struggle. Its crisis, just related, reacted 



184 THE KINGS. 

on the sister realm, in a revolution, almost as violent, 
but far less disastrous in its results. Athaliah, the 
daughter of Jezebel and queen-mother at Jerusalem, 
revenged herself on the party of Jehovah — treat- 
ing them as authors of the massacre in which her 
kindred had perished — by putting to death the 
whole royal family, and establishing a dynasty of 
Baal-worshippers, which lasted six years. But in a 
series of politic and able reigns, especially those of 
Asa and his son Jehoshaphat,* the priesthood had 
become greatly confirmed in its power, and was pre- 
pared to make its own terms with royalty.f Jehoi- 
ada, in the name of the child Joash, who had been 
secreted and saved from the massacre by an adroit 
and bold conspiracy, restored the house of David. 

For about twenty years there was now a peaceful 
regency of priests. It was no season to attempt any 
hazardous stroke of policy, or to challenge the strength 
of parties that might be hostile to the ruling power. 
Peace must be had at any cost. The position and 
temper of the priestly regency would secure it at 
home ; and in such a season of weakness it was pur- 
chased abroad by large gifts, to stay the threatened 
incursion of the Syrians. The young king, under 
his foster-father's guidance, went easily and willingly 
along in the lines of the priestly policy. It was not 
till after Jehoiada's death, and he began to doubt the 

* See in Chronicles the extraordinary expansions of the simple nar- 
rative of the Kings as to these two reigns. (2 Chron. chaps, xv. -xvii.) 
Asa routs an Ethiopian force of a million men and three hundred char- 
iots, while Jehoshaphat keeps a standing army of 1,260,000. 

t The mention of the Sabbath now first occurs in the historical 
books. (2 Kings xi. 5, 7.) 



PROPHETS OF JUDAH. — JOEL. 185 

priests' good faith in appropriating the pious contri- 
butions for the repairs of the temple, that he showed 
any disposition to take the reins of government him- 
self. This led to another feud of royalty and priest- 
hood ; to accusations of the king's apostasy ; and 
even to the charge * that his own cousin Zechariah 
perished by his order, " between the temple and the 
altar." Joash himself at last fell a victim to the dis- 
affection growing out of these party strifes, being as- 
sassinated by his own servants. The twenty years' 
rash and unfortunate reign of Amaziah f followed 
before the kingdom regained its full prosperity and 
strength under Uzziah. 

Meanwhile, the work of religious and intellectual 
cultivation had found a favouring impulse in the 
regency of priests. To that period is generally re- 
ferred the beginning of written prophecy, — a pro- 
duct of the Hebrew mind widely different from the 
extemporized political or religious agencies known 
by that name in the earlier age of Israel. A severe 
plague of locusts had ravaged the land in a series of 
devastations, coinciding with the menaces or injuries 
which Judah was enduring from neighbouring powers. 
This called forth the brief but noble composition of 
Joel, which announces the moral of that scourge in 
a powerful appeal to the popular conscience, — the 
demand of sacrificial penance, the lofty promise of 
the outpouring of God's spirit for the final deliver- 
ance of Judah, and the grateful assurance of revenge. 

* 2 Chron. xxiv. 20-22. 

t In which three thousand cities of Judah are said (2 Chron. xxv. 14) 
to have been smitten by the Israelites. 



186 THE KINGS. 

Tyre, which had kidnapped their children for sale 
in Greece,* should be enslaved to Judah ; while 
Egypt and Edom should become a desolation. 

From this time forth, the changing fortunes of the 
time are most faithfully reflected in the prophetical 
writings. Uzziah's long reign, of more than fifty 
years, was in the main a season of prosperity and 
peace. The frontier was secured at the south, and 
the fortifications of the capital were kept in good 
repair. And, while the more religious of the people 
bewailed the avarice and corruption that came in 
with the arts of peace, and seemed to flood the land 
with the vices of the old Canaanites,f they yet im- 
proved the leisure given, for culture and the practice 
of written composition. The eventful time that fol- 
lowed found its utterance in Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, 
and Micah. While ominous clouds hung in the 
horizon, still higher and higher rose the strain of 
prophecy ; and Isaiah's triumphant predictions of a 
Messiah J were uttered when the king of Israel had 
allied himself with a foreign invader for the ruin of 
Judah, when the most formidable power the world 
had yet known was lowering in the far northeast, 
and " the king's heart and the heart of his people 
were moved, as trees of the forest are moved with 
the wind." § 

In the eighty years that had elapsed since Elisha's 
death, great changes had come upon the northern king- 

* Compare Odyssey, XV. 414. t See Isaiah, ch. iii. -v. 

X Isaiah, ch. vii. - ix. 

§ Ibid., vii. 2. Comoare Ewald, Die Propheten des Alten Bundes, 
Vol. I. p. 294. 



JEROBOAM II. — AMOS AND HOSEA. 187 

dom. The long and vigorous reign of Jeroboam II. 
had secured a good degree of external security and 
strength, and had even restored for a time the old 
boundaries of Israel. But causes of dissolution were 
at work within. Amos, the "herdsman of Tekoah," 
a petty town of Judah, had given himself to earnest 
missionary service in the north ; and he powerfully 
depicts the military oppression, the wantonness of 
wealth, the riots, lewdness, and idolatry that accom- 
panied the external prosperity and splendour of 
Jeroboam's rule. Hosea, the only remaining native 
prophet of the north, — whose passionate yet tender 
objurgations were mostly made during the convul- 
sions that followed Jeroboam's death, — was perse- 
cuted by his own countrymen, and driven into Judah, 
where he wrote out his ministrations at his leisure. 
Thus the prophetic body, once so numerous there, 
and identified with so much of fanaticism and vio- 
lence in their earlier projects to recover the kingdom 
from apostasy, had utterly died out; and was not, 
as in Judah, replaced by that body of men of calmer 
temper and more cultivated mind whom we in gen- 
eral understand by that name. There remained 
nothing to give permanence to the religious ideas, 
or a higher tone to the personal and home life of the 
people. It was an age of deep moral corruption, as 
well as of violence and crime. A series of assassi- 
nations following the death of Jeroboam disabled 
the monarchy from keeping any hold on the popular 
loyalty, or adhering to any clear line of policy. The 
terrible Assyrian invasion, long menaced by the 
prophets, and only deferred a little by the bribe with 



188 THE KINGS. 

which Menahem bought a longer lease of his brutal 
despotism, came in the reign of Pekah, and swept 
away the northern and eastern portions of Israel, — 
" Zebulon, Naphtali, the parts beyond Jordan, and 
Galilee of the Gentiles," — and by a cruel and forced 
migration drove the inhabitants to live in the strange 
country beyond the Euphrates.* At length Hoshea, 
the last who reigned in Samaria, slew Pekah for his 
dastardy, and strove for seven years to retrieve the 
failing fortunes of the kingdom. 

The Assyrians were a formidable nation from the 
north, flushed with recent conquest, and sweeping on 
terrifically with the barbarous hordes of Scythians 
and Kurds, or Chaldaeans, in their train. The passion 
of dominion was carrying them towards Egypt, that 
land so tempting for its ancient fame and wealth 
to every conqueror, from Sennacherib to Napoleon. 
Syria, Phoenicia, and the several tribes of Palestine 
lay in the track of that terrible march. Resistless as 
destiny, it seemed as if it were only a question of 
time, when one by one they should be crushed and 
overpassed. 

Aliaz, king of Judah, after an invasion from Pe- 
kah, leagued with Rezin of Damascus,! and while 
still menaced by Edom and the Philistines, had taken 

* The prophet Nahum was born of one of the families of this cap- 
tivity. He witnesses and describes, a century later, the gathering ruin 
of Nineveh under the invasion of the Medes. 

t For a vivid description of the circumstances leading to this inva- 
sion, see Newman's "Hebrew Monarchy," 2d edit., pages 228-230. 
The alliance of Pekah and Rezin stripped Judah of its commercial 
outposts on the Red Sea, and might have resulted in the fall of the 
kingdom, but that Ahaz (whose " crime was that at the age of twenty 



ASSYRIAN INVASION. 189 

the desperate step of inviting this formidable power 
with bribes to the attack of his allied neighbours, 
Syria and Israel. Tiglath-pileser had captured Da- 
mascus, accordingly, and then swept into his net the 
outlying districts of Israel ; so that Pekah (as was 
just mentioned) found himself a vassal and tributary, 
and was slain by Hoshea, who resolved on a policy 
of bold resistance. He masked this policy for a time 
by the tribute he still continued to pay the Assyrians, 
meanwhile negotiating terms of alliance with Egypt. 

But internal commotions in this latter country 
rendered the Egyptian alliance " a broken reed, 
which if a man lean on, it should pierce his hand." 
A struggle there between the military and priestly 
caste made it impossible for Sethon to render any 
real service. The correspondence was detected. 
The threatened nations were preparing for a com- 
bined resistance. Hoshea was instantly seized, and 
sent as prisoner to Nineveh, and Shalmanezer laid 
siege to Samaria. 

The downfall of the kingdom was now at hand. 
Its internal disorganization was such that its national 
life could not have endured long in vigour at any 
rate. Crippled by its recent losses, it had little to 
depend upon except the main strength of its fortifi- 

he could not withstand the combined force of Damascus, Israel, Philis- 
tia, Edom, and perhaps Moab") sent to offer his allegiance to the 
Assyrian monarch, who presently swept away the Syrian force, cap- 
tured Damascus, and reduced Samaria to the condition of vassalage. 
The Chronicler adds (2 Chr. xxviii. 6, 8) to the disasters of Pekah's 
invasion the slaughter of 120,000 in a day, and the capture of near 
twice as many prisoners, who are restored without ransom at the inter- 
cession of the prophet Oded. 



190 THE KINGS. 

cations, the unskilfulness of its besiegers, and the 
resolution of despair. For three years Samaria .con- 
tinued to hold its assailants at bay. The conflict was 
watched with anxiety and terror by the neighbouring 
population of Judah. Some of the most pathetic 
and earnest of the prophetic odes* cluster about 
this critical point of the Hebrew fortunes ; and the 
epitomist departs from his usual meagre brevity,! as 
he mournfully sums up the reasons of that downfall 
in the nation's corrupted life and departure from its 
faith. Samaria fell, and the kingdom of Israel was 
blotted out. Its people were taken to fill the vast 
spaces of the half-built Assyrian capital, or else were 
distributed among the subject districts. J The ten 
tribes were utterly extinguished, and had no longer 
a name or place in human history. The rich terri- 
tory of Samaria and Galilee lay half wild until its 
scattered colonists were in terror from the increase 
of wild beasts upon them, and sought to be instructed 
in the worship of Jehovah, as the local god, who 
might be able to protect them.§ A few missionary 
priests were sent to dwell among them, and the 
mongrel religion that grew up was the heresy of the 
Samaritans, — most hateful of all misbeliefs to the 
Jew, who prided himself on the strict purity of his 
creed. A scanty remnant of the sect still forms a 
little community in Palestine. 

* Isaiah, chaps, xxviii. - xxxii. 

t 2 Kings, chap. xvii. The book purports to be only an abstract, or 
compend, from more copious annals. The conqueror of Samaria was 
Sargon. (See Rawlinson's Herodotus.) 

X A policy of mercy, as following the frightful barbarities of the 
siege. See Layard. 

§ 1 Kings xvii. 26. 



HEZEKIAH. — ISAIAH. 191 

It was fortunate for Judah, at this period, that the 
weak and idolatrous reign of Ahaz — who had bar- 
tered for the Assyrian alliance both the treasures of 
the temple and the independence of the state * — was 
followed by that of Hezekiah, perhaps the noblest 
and best of all the Hebrew kings, whose trusted 
counsellor was Isaiah, the noblest and best of all the 
Hebrew prophets. For once, the secular and spirit- 
ual forces of the kingdom were brought into complete 
harmony ; and the result was a firm attitude and 
ultimate security amidst the most formidable impend- 
ing dangers. It was early in Hezekiah's reign that 
the northern kingdom was submerged in the flood 
of Assyrian invasion ; and to most it seemed inev- 
itable f that the same fate must follow for Jerusa- 
lem. But the spirit of the great prophet remained 
undaunted. His timely counsel averted each base 
expedient, and fortified the sometimes wavering reso- 
lution of the king. In the wanton invasion from 
Pekah and Rezin, he had foretold the triumphant 
advent of Judah's new sovereign, the " prince of 
peace." $ He had warned Damascus of her fall, and 
bidden Philistia not to exult in the desolation that 
seemed impending over Judah. § It was his counsel 
or vehement appeal that defeated the proposed treaty 

* By means of which, indeed, says Newman, he hushanded the re- 
sources which afterwards proved effectual in the crisis then impending. 

t Even, apparently, to the prophet Micah (iii. 12), who speaks as a 
country villager (i. 10- 15) of the events which Isaiah witnessed from 
the capital. 

J Isaiah, chaps, vii. - ix. See, also, Zechariah, chaps, ix. - xi., which 
are referred to this period. 

§ Isaiah xvii. 14. 



192 THE KINGS. 

with Assyria, and deposed the king's minister, Shebna, 
who was too ready to yield the claim of tribute ; and 
so committed the state to its final attitude of resist- 
ance.* He even boldly rebuked the favourite policy 
of seeking aid from Egypt, — chariots and horsemen 
in exchange for subsidies of men and money to fight 
for the common deliver ance.f When Tyre main- 
tained alone the desperate battle of her indepen- 
dence, and for five years delayed the stroke that 
menaced the little state of Judah, his clear eye saw 
the causes of ruin at work within, and he seemed 
even with a sort of triumph to anticipate the pe- 
riod of her downfall, predicting that this trader- 
city, splendid but corrupt, " whose merchants were 
princes, and her traffickers the honourable of the 
earth,'' would utterly perish before the terrible in- 
vader.:}: But this doom was to be deferred for yet 
many centuries. While the rest of Phoenicia was 
overrun, Tyre held out bravely in her island-fortress ; 
her little squadron of twelve battle-ships vanquished 
the hostile fleet of sixty ; § and Sennacherib, who suc- 
ceeded to the baffled Shalmanezer, hastened to the 
easier conquests of the south. 

The Hebrew king had not failed to improve the 
opportunity of delay. The fortifications of Jerusa- 
lem were freshly repaired and manned. The policy 
of the Egyptian alliance was held in reserve,, if not 
positively acted on.|| An Ethiopian embassy, from 

* Isaiah, chap. xxii. t Ibid., chap. xxxi. 

\ Ibid., chap, xxiii. 

§ Grote's Greece, Chap. XVIII. ; Josephus, IX. 14, 2. 

|| 2 Kings xviii. 21. 



SENNACHERIB. 193 

the far highlands of Africa, came to negotiate in Je- 
rusalem for mutual defence against a power that 
seemed to aim at the conquest of the world.* The 
firm and powerful league thus secured among the 
menaced nations, the successful defence of Tyre, and, 
possibly, the threatened revolt of Babylon, all com- 
bined to check what had seemed the resistless in- 
vasion of Sennacherib. While he was engaged in 
securing the conquest of the hill-country and the sea- 
board, the terror of the capital (excited probably by 
the dreadful barbarities exercised on Lachishf) had 
gone so far that Hezekiah sent him propitiatory gifts, 
and would have become his vassal but for his treach- 
erous attack and the insolent terms he offered, which 
drove the nation upon a last desperate defence. 

But the storm of invasion passed away as myste- 
riously and suddenly as it had been formidable in its 
gathering. Sennacherib was turned aside from Ju- 
dah by the rumour of an Ethiopian host said to be 
gathering in his rear. To oppose his attack, the 
Egyptians had only a suddenly mustered force of 
artisans, over whom the Assyrian records claim a 
signal victory. But an invisible power, which both 
Hebrew and Egyptian represent as a special interpo- 

* See 2 Kings xix. 9 and Isaiah, chap, xviii., in which the prophet 
bids the messengers return and announce the impending ruin of the 
Assyrians. Ethiopia was the power that now ruled in Upper Egypt. 
(Newman, p. 263) 

t Which are represented in detail in the sculptured works of Nine- 
veh. (See Layard's " Babylon and Nineveh," p. 149.) The inscriptions 
coincide with the Hebrew narrative, as to the exact number of golden 
talents of Hezekiah's tribute. For Isaiah's message of defiance, on 
hearing of these enormities, see chap, xxxiii. 

9 M 



194 THE KINGS. 

sition of the Divine Protector, baffled the conquering 
host. According to the narrative of the latter, the 
Assyrian army, after crossing the desert, was encoun- 
tered on the Egyptian border by a multitude of field- 
mice, which gnawed their shield-thongs, quiver-bands, 
and bowstrings, and so rendered the whole equipment 
worthless.* As the Hebrew account proceeds, the 
forces of Sennacherib were advancing upon Jerusa- 
lem, and the city lay in a hush of terrified expectation, 
when the angel of Jehovah, in the form of a deadly 
pestilence, destroyed in a single night a hundred 
and eighty-five thousand men. The discomfited 
king hastened back to his capital, where he presently 
encountered the revolt of the warlike Medes, the open 
hostility of Babylon, and the impending dissolution 
of his empire. He perished by assassination at the 
hands of his own sons ; but not before the victories 
and splendours of his reign had converted the wide 
district-city of Nineveh into a capital of unparalleled 
magnificence. 

The sudden deliverance exalted to the highest pitch 
both the glory and the confidence of Judah. The 
fame of Hezekiah, the first of monarchs who had 
turned back the fury of Assyrian conquest, spread as 
far as to the revolted satrap of Babylon, and messen- 
gers from Merodach-Baladan came to solicit the alli- 
ance of Jerusalem, — a policy which Isaiah prudently 
discouraged. A later composition of the great proph- 
et f expresses his confidence that the tumults and 
commotions now prevailing in Egypt £ might be Je- 

* Herodotus, II. 141. t Isaiah, chap. xix. 

} See Herodotus, II. 141, 147, 151. 



CLOSE OF HEZEKIAH'S REIGN. 195 

hovah's method of winning that ancient kingdom 
from idolatry, so that a reign of peace might come, 
and hate might cease, and alliance and harmony pre- 
vail between Egypt, Assyria, and Judah. Songs of 
victory and prophetic odes of this period,* still fur- 
ther express the temper of a fond and exulting con- 
fidence, which was the reaction from long dismay. 
Trust in the inviolability of Zion's sacred hill, suf- 
ficiently defended by the arm of its invisible Cham- 
pion and Deliverer, and by 

" Siloa's fount that flowed 
Hard by the oracle of God," 

became a point of religious faith, which it were 
almost traitorous to doubt, — a fatal confidence it 
proved, leading to rash contempt of real dangers, and 
bitterly rebuked, a century later, in the overthrow of 
the holy city and the pillage of the temple by Neb- 
uchadnezzar. But for the present there was no 
such drawback to the nation's exalted and kindling 
hope ; and Hezekiah recovered from what seemed a 
fatal sickness, taken as some have thought by the 
contagion of that great pestilence, to live fifteen 
years longer, as in answer to his pathetic prayer, and 
finally to close his life in glory and peace. 

III. The closing century of the Hebrew monarchy 
is almost equally divided between two violent — and, 
in their later consequences, fatal — revolutions affect- 
ing the political interests along with the religion of 
the kingdom. 

Manasseh was but a boy of twelve when he came 
to the inheritance of his father's crown. There were 

* Psalms xlvi., xlviii., lxv., lxxv., lxxvi. 



196 THE KINGS. 

now apparently no men of eminence, of the party most 
faithful to the national institutions, to claim a con- 
trolling influence in his counsels. Isaiah had prob- 
ably died during . the latter portion of Hezekiah's 
reign.* The young king fell under the control of 
the men who had brought on the disgraces of the 
rule of Ahaz. Comparisons began to be drawn to the 
disadvantage of the Jewish state, in point of opulence 
and refinement, between that and neighbouring re- 
gions. The Hebrew faith had not emancipated itself 
from the limited and exclusive sense which had once 
been a matter of necessity. The more generous tem- 
per of Isaiah or Micah was by no means reflected in 
the general religious mind. What we call liberal- 
ity and tolerance was most likely unfitted to the 
temper of the nation, and unsuited to the condition 
of the time. Exclusiveness may have been the price 
which even the best were too glad to pay for zeal. 
At any rate, no common ground seems to have been 
found for the two parties in Judah to occupy together. 
The supremacy, even the security, of one could be 
purchased only by the ruin of the other. 

It may be, too, that some actually existing religious 
wants and longings were imperfectly met by the He- 
brew faith, at least in the popular understanding of 
it. Mosaism stood always in an attitude either of 
aggression or defence before the religions of the 
world. Being essentially an antagonistic and not a 
reconciling faith, it was very likely to reject elements 
of culture which should have been freely sought. 

* The tradition that he was sawn asunder in Manasseh's persecution 
has neither proof nor probability. 



IDOLATRIES OF MANASSEH. 197 

By its rejection of Christianity, long after, it con- 
demned itself to stand forever in the light of history 
as a truncated religion. Its own intellectual man- 
hood it never reached. Something its intrinsic 
character seems always to have lacked for its own 
harmony and fulness; and when this could not be 
supplied from a higher intellectual or moral type, it 
would naturally be sought elsewhere. 

We find indications of this fact in the people's 
obstinate attachment from of old to the relics of 
Canaanite superstition,* and in the craving now ex- 
hibited for foreign mysteries and rites. In imitation 
of Babylonish or Syrian custom, Ahaz had introduced 
chariots and horses of the sun-god, and built a ". sun- 
dial," or watch-tower, to observe the courses of the 
stars. Manasseh now followed still further this policy 
of his grandfather. Star-worship was again assidu- 
ously cultivated. The horrid rites of Moloch were 
performed afresh by making the king's own children 
" pass through the fire " in honour of that grim idol ; 
and the vale of Hinnom, with its ghastly mound for 
sacrifice,! became the polluted place which it ever 
after remained in the imagination of the Jew. Altar 
and ark were taken from the temple. In retaliation 
for Hezekiah's vigorous reform, the first example 
was set in Judah of making the foreign religion an 
exclusive, inexorable, persecuting faith. As if to 

* See 1 Kings, chap. xvii. 

t This is one probable signification of the name " Tophet," which 
has been variously held to denote the place of loathing, burning, burial, 
or of the drum, which instrument, it is said, was used to drown the 
victims' cries. See Gesenius ; also Ghillany, " Die Menschenopfer der 
alten Hebraer." 

V 



198 THE KINGS. 

provide against future disasters, foreign divinities 
were assiduously sought ; for it was one of the super- 
stitions of antiquity, that so the gods of other nations 
might be propitiated, and the power of their wor- 
shippers reduced. And, as a final defiance of the 
prejudices of his countrymen, the king's son was 
called by the Egyptian name Amoun, as if he were 
devoted from his birth to that divinity of the realm 
of sand. 

The religious spirit of the people was utterly de- 
pressed. No one was found to wear the mantle that 
had been borne so worthily by an Elijah or an Isaiah. 
That nobler generation of prophets had passed away. 
Those who now bore the name were " dumb dogs that 
would not bark;" and if Ezekiel* charges the proph- 
ets of his time with magic rites, it is because they too 
shared in the demoralization of this unhappy period, 
and had learned to distrust the efficiency of the gen- 
uine Hebrew faith. Those who were so bold as to 
resist the invading superstitions were mercilessly put 
down, until " Jerusalem was filled with blood from 
one end to the other ; " and a large number, despair- 
ing of life or peace otherwise, took refuge in Egypt, 
among those who had fled thither in terror of the 
Assyrian invasion. 

The long reign of Manasseh, the longest in the 
Hebrew annals, thus witnessed the violent persecu- 
tion of the ancient faith of Israel, and the expatria- 
tion of those who should have been the centre of the 
nation's strength. The price thus paid seems for a 
long time to have secured the outward tranquillity 

* Chap. xiii. 17. 



SEEDS OF REVOLUTION. 199 

which was partly its motive. Judah was for this 
whole half-century unmolested by foreign enemies. 
Nothing is told in the earlier narrative of any other 
events than those touching the religious affairs of 
the kingdom ; and the later account, that Manasseh 
was carried captive to Babylon, where he repented 
and afterwards made public atonement of his wrong, 
reads like a moral apologue, or a veil to disguise the 
unbroken tranquillity of so impious a reign.* 

But the retribution attending the king's criminal 
policy fell heavily upon the nation after his death. 
His cruelties were speedily avenged in the assassina- 
tion of his son. He had deeply affronted the most 
sacred sentiments and recollections of his people ; and 
he was long after f regarded as the real author of the 
nation's downfall. The popular conscience, though 
silenced for a time, would be heard at length. A rev- 
olution had been long preparing in men's thoughts, 
which, in the reign of Josiah, immediately succeeding, 
was carried out in the stern policy of retaliation. 

Perhaps it is at this period that we are to date the 
beginning of the influence, afterwards so decisive and 
profound, of Egyptian culture upon the Hebrew mind. 
A. long residence in Egypt had given to a body of in- 
telligent, religious, and faithful men leisure for re- 
casting the memories and old records of their nation, 
after the model formed by the style of thought illus- 
trated in the prophets. The early history was in 

* 2 Chronicles xxxiii. 11-17. The account makes him to be taken 
to Babylon by the Assyrians, now in the later stage of their decline ; 
while his reign is directly followed (as in Kings) by the idolatries of 
Amon. Ewald, however, accepts Manasseh's captivity as a fact. 

t See Jeremiah xv. 4. 



200 THE KINGS. 

some measure re-written in this spirit, and made to 
preach the lessons of the day. Debarred from the 
favourite forms of the prophetic appeal and occa-. 
sional ode, the Hebrew writers of the time carried 
the thought and style of prophecy far back into the 
legendary past. The eventful history of the nation 
was read in the kindling light of that religious and 
providential significance with which early faith and. 
later memory fondly clothed it. Especially the book 
of Deuteronomy, the " later law," was very probably 
composed about this time, — from some indications 
in Egypt itself;* and a foundation was laid, in the 
earnest, solemn, and impressive character of that 
most remarkable of the prophetic books, for what 
was afterwards carried out in practice as the " Deu- 
teronomical Reform." f 

The volume of the Law, thus completed and recast, 
found its way to Jerusalem, and made the most pro- 
found impression on the young King Josiah, to whom 
it was presented by the priest. It formed at once 
the rallying-point of reviving loyalty, and a channel 
for the returning tide of patriotic faith. From this 

* See Deuteronomy xxiii. 7 ; xxviii. 68. 

t This view is suggested by Ewald, and coincides with the analogies 
which have long been observed between some details of the Hebrew 
ritual, as recounted in Deuteronomy, — especially the formula of bless- 
ing and cursing, — with similar forms in the Egyptian liturgy. It is 
adopted here, not on critical grounds chiefly, but in order to present 
a fair, connected view of this portion of the admirable narrative 
of Ewald. By the aid of a doubtful chronology, the reform here 
spoken of has been connected with the reform of the " nature-relig- 
ion " in India by Buddha, in Persia by Zoroaster, and in Greece by 
Xenophanes and others. (See Mackay's "Progress of the Intellect," 
Vol. II. p. 438.) 



JOSIAH'S EEFOKM. 201 

time forth, with more or less of variation, the Penta- 
teuch, which was previously unknown, at least as a 
whole, to king or people, became the central object 
of Jewish veneration, and began to be preserved with 
religious care. Its stern admonitions against apos- 
tasy, reflecting the temper roused in that bitter time 
of persecution, were observed in Josiah's zealous 
abolition of all traces of alien worship ; while the 
humane and gentle spirit of the later law, embody- 
ing the sorrows and sympathies of exile, was carried 
out in his merciful and popular rule. 

The reform begun under royal auspices was heart- 
ily responded to by the people. A brief period fol- 
lowed of prosperity and glory. Only the deep wounds 
inflicted by these successive and too violent changes, 
together with fresh perils from abroad, prevented a 
complete regeneration of the Hebrew state. The re- 
ligious spirit could scarce avoid being affected by the 
precision, formalism, and pedantic dogmatism which 
would result from the reverence now encouraged to- 
wards sacred books and institutions. A tyrannous 
and violent apostasy had brought on a violent recoil. 
There was something, indeed, spasmodic in the entire 
conduct of the reform, as its details are hinted in 
our brief chronicle ; and the incessant complaints of 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel show how little the general 
character of the people was penetrated by the spirit- 
ual doctrine so rigorously enforced. 

Meanwhile, the gathering forces of rival empires 

threatened new calamities from the northeast. The 

conquering progress of the Medes, before whom the 

splendid capital of the Assyrians already tottered to 

9* 



202 THE KINGS. 

its fall,* was checked by a sudden irruption of one 
of those Scythian or Tartar hordes from Central Asia, 
causing the same consternation among the more civ- 
ilized nations as was felt in Europe at the invasion 
of the Huns. They came as far as Palestine, where 
the frightful desolation of their inroad, as of wild 
beasts rather than men, is told in all images of horror 
by the prophets;! and, under the obscure name of 
Magog, they have furnished the Scripture imagery 
for the terrors of the latter day. But an undisci- 
plined barbarian horde spreads and loses itself, like 
water in the sand, or else is drafted into the service 
of some more civilized power. The Scythians were 
thought to have been struck with " womanish dis- 
ease," or nervelessness, in vengeance for their rob- 
bery of a Syrian temple of Astarte ; their chieftains 
were massacred by the Medes at a banquet where 
they had been received as guests ; and, being enrolled 
in the Assyrian forces during their last defence, theirs 
is perhaps one of the unknown tongues of the Nine- 
vite inscriptions. The brief tempest spent itself; and 
within thirty years the great powers were ready to 
begin their game anew. J 

. The fortunes of Judah now hastened rapidly to a 
crisis. Josiah may have relied on some favouring 
oracle, § declaring him the invincible champion of 

* See the spirited description of Nahum, who writes as an eyewit- 
ness of their invasion. Compare Herodotus, I. 102. 

t See Zephaniah; Jeremiah, chap. iv. -vi. ; Psalm lix. 

J Herodotus, I. 103 - 106. 

§ Huldah had foretold (2 Kings xxii. 20) that he should be "gath- 
ered to his grave in peace," without witnessing the calamities that 
would follow. 



DEATH OF JOSIAH. 203 

the true faith. He may have conceived the rash am- 
bition to recover the boundaries as he had restored 
the institutions of David's kingdom. With his slen- 
der force he undertook to resist the king of Egypt, 
who hastened to anticipate the advance of the Medes 
in Syria. In vain Necho represented that his design 
was altogether friendly to Judah, and that he was 
engaged in keeping off a common enemy. His pol- 
icy in occupying the seaports of Palestine roused the 
suspicious jealousy of Josiah, who had already begun 
to exercise a sort of protectorate over the whole ex- 
tent of Canaan, feebly occupied by the scanty Samar- 
itan population. He encountered Necho near the 
Galilean seaboard ; and the plain of Megiddo, which 
had witnessed, seven centuries before, the vindication 
of Hebrew independence in Deborah's splendid tri- 
umph, witnessed now its downfall in the defeat and 
death of Josiah, the last worthy inheritor of David's 
crown and lineage. 

" Weep ye not for the dead," said Jeremiah, 
chiding the passionate lamentation of the people, 
" neither mourn for him ; but weep bitterly for him 
that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor 
see his native land." * The death of Josiah was 
only the commencement of that train of calamities 
which within twenty years destroyed forever the 
monarchy of Judah. His son was detained as pris- 
oner or hostage in Egypt, and Jehoiakim ruled ten 
years or more as a vassal of the conqueror. When 
Nineveh was taken by the Medes, the star of Babylon 
was in the ascendant ; and the young chief Nebuchad- 

* Jeremiah xxii. 10. 



204 THE KINGS. 

nezzar, leagued with the Medes to destroy the only ri- 
val power, discomfited the Egyptian force at Carche- 
mish, and succeeded to its domination over Judah. 

In vain Jehoiakim maintained a brief struggle 
against the Chaldaean power. The weakness of Ju- 
dah made it a prey to the new spoiler, while old 
enmities of neighbouring tribes now broke out 
afresh.* The king died amidst the terror of the 
impending overthrow, and his son surrendered him- 
self, without a blow, to be taken with ten thousand 
captives to Babylon. The ill-fated Zedekiah, brother 
of Jehoiakim, was put upon the throne as a subject- 
prince, or tool, to serve the pleasure of the Chaldsean 
despot. 

The calamities of the time f again drove many to 
seek refuge in Egypt ; and there seemed even a hope 
that an alliance with that country might enable 
Judah to throw off the yoke of Babylon. But the 
power of Apries, now king there, had been wrecked 
in a hazardous campaign in Libya, and his strongest 
vassal, Amasis, slew him shortly after in a revolt. J 
The late king's imprisonment in Babylon, whither 
he was summoned at the first suspicion of his faith, 
warned Zedekiah what he had to expect from any 
recreancy. He swore allegiance anew, and was suf- 
fered a few years longer to hold the tottering throne. 

But the stimulus constantly afforded by the sor- 

* Ammon and Moab now appear again (2 Kings xxiv. 2) as ene- 
mies ; while the fierce vengeance of Edom makes the theme of the 
brief prophecy of Obadiah. See also Psalm cxxxvii. 7. 

t Habakkuk about this season teaches for the first time the profound 
lesson of trust without hope. 

X See Herodotus, II. 161-169. 



ZEDEKIAH'S KEVOLT. — JEREMIAH. 205 

rowful and impatient exiles of the Euphrates, to- 
gether with the fanatic confidence of a party among 
the people, the memory of their signal deliverance 
from Sennacherib, and their fond trust that the 
ramparts of Zion were impregnable to any heathen 
force, compelled, as it were, the final hopeless and 
ruinous revolt. In the uneasy and highly roused 
temper of the time there w r ere not wanting those 
who confidently foretold a splendid triumph,* and 
the immediate coming of the Messiah, or the nation's 
ideal and victorious king, f So frantic was the as- 
surance of some, that, during a short respite of the 
siege that followed, they reduced again to bondage 
certain slaves or captives, whom they had emanci- 
pated so as to serve in the desperate defence. J 

The prophets of clearer vision, as Jeremiah and 
Habakkuk, saw the condition of affairs too well to 
hold out any treacherous hope. If anything were 
wanting to verify their cheerless words, it was found 
in the civil feud which not even the siege could 
bring to terms. Zedekiah had staked everything on 
the cast of this revolt, and played the game out as a 
desperate man, upheld by a fanatic party of relig- 
ionists, who conceived it infamous to yield a point 
of sacred ground, or to harbour a doubt of Jeho- 
vah's invincible protection. On the other hand, 
whatever chance there might have been at least 
of a longer struggle, if not of eventual triumph, 
was foiled by the continual despairing protest of 
Jeremiah. At one time he seems to have stood 

* See Jeremiah, chap. xxix. f See Zechariah, chap, xii , xiv. 

X Jeremiah, chap, xxxiv. 



206 THE KINGS. 

quite alone in his predictions of evil, and was openly 
charged with traitorous plottings with the enemy.* 
His defence was, that Micah, in the former siege, had 
uttered similar predictions ; and the shelter of that 
name was sufficient for his acquittal. Apparently, 
he held defeat or surrender to be only a necessary 
prelude to greater security and peace, and that the 
king's resistance was the real hostility against the 
land ; for, to show his confidence in better times 
that should follow, he made and publicly registered 
the purchase of a field in his native village. t His 
sincerity was evident enough, and the sanctity of his 
character was a shelter from any act of gross vio- 
lence. But the party in power charged him with 
being the evil genius that tied their hands, demoral- 
ized their discipline, and held them from using their 
real strength. The king, embarrassed by an influ- 
ence so wholly out of his control, kept him for some 
time confined in an open house-court, or private 
jail ; then, on a charge of traitorous practices, 
threw him into a dungeon, where, in damp and 
noisomeness, he was in peril of his life ; J then, 
in compassion, or in deference to those who revered 
the sincere though despairing prophet, restored him 
once more to liberty. And so the siege wore on for 
about two years. 

At length " famine prevailed in the city, and there 
was no bread for the people of the land. The city 
was broken up, and all the men of war fled away by 
night." The king was captured near Jericho, and 

* Jeremiah, chap, xxxvii 13. f Ibid., chap, xxxii. 

t Ibid., chap, xxxviii. 



FALL OF JERUSALEM. 207 

led before the conqueror. His children were slain 
before his face, his own eyes were put out, and in 
this horrible plight he was taken to the prison 
of Babylon. The fortifications of Jerusalem were 
broken down. Palace and temple were burned with 
• fire. The gathered treasures of the kings and the 
sacred vessels of the sanctuary were taken to grace 
the carousal of the Babylonish conqueror. The 
slender remnant of the population were either car- 
ried into captivity "by the waters of Babylon," or 
fled to Egypt (whither Jeremiah went unwillingly 
to pass the remainder of his days*), or else were suf- 
fered, under a native governor, to till the desola/te 
fields of Judah. A few helpless struggles against 
the pressure of that heavy hand, a few stern meas- 
ures of vengeance or suppression, and the fair land 
of Canaan, which had been " as Eden or as the gar- 
den of Jehovah," the Land of Promise, which for so 
many centuries had been and was yet to be the cen- 
tre of Hebrew affection, and the home of Hebrew 
faith, was in the desolate condition portrayed in the 
pathetic Lamentations of Jeremiah : — 

" How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! 
How is she become as a widow ! 

She that was great among the nations, princess among the prov- 
inces, 
How is she become tributary ! 
Judah goeth into exile, affliction, and slavery : 
Her dwelling is abroad among the nations : 
She findeth no repose ! " 

* Here he uttered his protest against the national idolatry, strove to 
revive or keep up the Hebrew spirit of his countrymen, and foretold an 
approaching conquest (unknown to history) of that land by Nebuchad- 
nezzar. 



VII. THE LAW. 

IT is among the manners of primeval and patri- 
archal life that we must seek the germ of those 
institutions which have given the Hebrews their 
marked place in history. Many elements of their 
religion had root in the common soil of Oriental 
culture. Their customs were the later and devel- 
oped form of tribal habits, which we faintly trace by 
their relics in Hebrew song or legend, and by their 
affinities in the customs of kindred tribes. What- 
ever influence was brought to bear upon them by 
the shaping hand of Moses, or by a later and purer 
monotheism, or by the civil policy of the kings, we 
must assume for their understanding that back- 
ground of popular feeling which so slowly yielded 
before the characteristic faith of Judaism, and that 
sensuous or bloody superstition embodied in the rites 
of Syrian worship. 

Of the primitive and rude fetichism that seems to 
belong to the infancy of every people, but faint and 
as it were second-hand traces are to be discerned in 
the Hebrew writings. At the earliest period which 
we can see with any clearness, it had already nearly 
passed the transition state of star-worship,* and was 

* See page 12, for the legend indicating this transition; also Deu- 
teronomy iv. 19. 



SYRIAN MYTHOLOGY. 209 

supplanted by a pretty well defined polytheism, the 
influence of which is strongly marked on the earlier 
customs, and on much of the religious language, 
of the Hebrews. Each tribe or nation had its sev- 
eral divinity.* The "jealous God" of Israel found 
a rival in Baal of the Canaanites, D agon of the Phi- 
listines, Chemosh of Moab, Molech of Ammon, in: 
Ashera the lewd or Ashteroth the bloody goddess 
of the Syrians. To the popular fancy these were, 
real deities : and down to a late period, spite of the 
stern legislation of Moses, and the reproaches of the 
prophets, who called them devils, these "gods of the 
nations " received the people's obstinate homage. 

The strongly marked features of race, climate, and 
scenery must all serve in some measure as a guide, in 
estimating that common character which ran through 
these varieties of Shemitic worship. The group of 
tribes, or petty nations, inhabiting the regions of 
Syria were kindred not only in blood but in faith. 
Their mind was cast in a common mould. Their rites 
and institutions were modelled after a common type. 
Their fancy was kindled and trained by the same 
great natural objects,— sea, desert or mountain, land 
and sky. The fascinating, yet often terrible mythol- 
ogy of the East, so imperfectly known to us through 
the allusions in Scripture story, or by the later 
accounts of the Greeks, is most easily interpreted to 
our imagination by the subtile connection which traces 

* The Alexandrian commentators found this doctrine expressly 
taught in Deut. xxxiii. 8, translating the latter clause, " according to 
the number of his angels/' — the number being held to be seventy- 
two, — whom Philo identifies with the " daemons " of the Greeks. 

N 



210 THE LAW. 

its symbols and analogies in the soil, the seasons, and 
the sky of Syria. 

El " the Mighty " * is the name of the mysterious 
Nature-Deity, and leads the mythic cycle. The vast 
and vague conception would require nothing less 
than the universe for its embodiment. But religious 
fancy seeks a definite symbol, or visible manifestation 
of the Infinite. This, to the Oriental mind, is found 
in the sun, which was adored by those ancient tribes 
under the title Bel or Baal. As " Lord of the hosts 
of heaven," he was worshipped alike on the " high 
places " of Canaan and on the plains of Shinar, the 
moon and the five visible planets being his attendants. 
The " Queen of heaven," the great light that ruled 
the night, was the celestial symbol of Asheraf and 
of Astarte, by which names the Syrians denoted the 
female element in the universal life. The royal Ju- 
piter, called " Gad," or the fortunate, was the starry 
symbol corresponding to Baal, or the sun ; and Venus, 
the fair morning and evening star, would in like 
manner represent the female companion deity. The 
planet Mercury may have been most nearly identified 
with the Earth-god, represented variously by the 
Greeks as Dionysus or Pan ; as Mars, called also 
Azazel or Typhon, was with the demon-breath of 
blasting and pestilential heat. Last of all the heav- 
enly host, the pale and baleful Saturn embraced in 
his circuit the paths of all the rest, brooding like a 
gloomy Destiny upon the verge of the outer dark- 

* See Exodus vi. 3. 

t This name is ignorantly rendered " groves " (after the LXX.) 
throughout the Old Testament. See 2 Kings xxi. 7. 



SEVEN DIVINE POWERS. 211 

ness.* This became the especial symbol of the mys- 
terious El, — that dark universal power, whom the 
Canaanites called by the title Iao, the " Living," a 
name allied with the Hebrew Jehovah, and also, 

ISRA-EL.f 

We have thus, in the imperfectly known mythology 
of .the East, tolerably clear traces of a circle of at 
least seven divine Powers, having each its recognized 
heavenly symbol. As the primitive adoration of the 
stars or emblems is merged in that of local deities, so 
a mythological Person is associated with each of the 
celestial bodies thought to have a peculiar influence 
on human destinies. The early wide-spread division 
of time into weeks, after the well-marked courses of 
the moon, assigned to each of these powers its own 
day. The week began with the festival of the Sun, 
and closed with that of the universal power, whose 
heavenly sign was the outmost of the planets, — 
known in Italy as Saturn, to the Greeks as all-pro- 
ducing, all-devouring Time, in Palestine as Chiun 
or Remphan,^ and later, by the name Sabbatha, 
or Rest. This sevenfold division of time became 
the basis of the religious or festal periods, both 
in Egypt and among all the Oriental tribes, — traces 
of it being found also in the customs of Greece and 
Rome, and even among the barbarous races of 
America. 

* " Because of the seven heavenly bodies by which mortals are con- 
trolled, the star of Saturn is borne in the loftiest orbit and in excelling 
might ; and, in general, the power and the courses of the celestials are 
determined by the number seven." — Tacitus, Hist., V. 4. 

t Or, El the Prince. (Compare Gen. xxxii. 28.) Hence, according 
to some, the designation V people of Israel." 

X Amos v. 26 ; Acts vii. 43. 



212 THE LAW. 

The attributes of the several powers in this mythic 
hierarchy were gradually blended in the conception 
of one universal Deity, known to the Hebrews under 
the plural name Elohim.* But each nation would 
doubtless merge the features of the one Nature- 
God in those of its own special deity. Hence both 
the attributes themselves and their celestial symbols 
are almost indifferently ascribed to each, and the 
details of the Syrian mythology become inextricably 
confused. 

The names above recited indicate that cycle of Syr- 
ian superstitions by which the Hebrews were from 
the first surrounded, and towards which, even to the 
last, they were obstinately prone. Its essence has 
been called " a pantheistic nature-worship, or adora- 
tion of the elements, sharply distinguished from the 
monotheistic religion of Mosaism." f This was in 
time resolved into the elements symbolized by those 
" powers of the air." The distinction was at first 
drawn only between the male and female divine or 
elemental principles, but was wrought out by de- 
grees into the elaborate mythology which so de- 
bauched the Hebrew manners and fascinated the 
popular mind. Its crude and vague character is 
strongly contrasted with the pronounced theogony of 
the Greeks. 

Of the several divinities, Bel (or Apollo) and Ash- 
era (Cybele, or Aphrodite), as well as Thammuz 

* Variously rendered in the Old Testament by God, gods, and angels. 

\ See Movers, " Die Phonizer," Vol. I. But Comte says that pan- 
theism is only " a scientific reconstruction of fetichism," which was in 
fact the real primitive and rude faith. 



BAAL OR MOLOCH. 213 

(perhaps identical with the Earth-god, or Dionysusj, 
were worshipped especially with licentious rites ; all, 
no doubt, with human sacrifices. Of the bloody and 
horrible character of the Syrian superstition there is 
abundant proof in the Hebrew writings, as well as 
in what is recounted respecting Tyre and Carthage 
by the Greeks.* As Bel, or Baal, represents the quick- 
ening splendours of the sun, so Moloch — a word hav- 
ing the same radical signification of lord or king — 
represents in that mythology his malignant and de- 
structive rays, or the devouring force of flame. 
Nothing more seized and held the imagination of the 
shuddering worshipper than the exulting and eager 
fury of the flame, as it " leaped forth from the altar " 
to devour the sacrifice. This quality is frightfully 
signified in the elaborate and horrid idols of that 
grim worship : sometimes a brazen automaton, which, 
being heated glowing hot, sprang out to snatch from 
the crowd its victim, with whom it plunged back to 
the blazing pile ; sometimes a statue, whose out- 
stretched arms threw the offered child into a fire 
burning at its feet ^sometimes a hollow figure, within 
whose scorching bosom the first-born infant was cast 
to perish, while wild cries and the beating of drums 
drowned the voice alike of mother and babe. This 
is the worship dwelt on with such emphasis and 
images of horror by the prophets, in their appeals in 

* See especially, as to the character of this worship and the im- 
plication of the Hebrews in it, 2 Kings xxi. 3 - 9 ; xxiii. 4 - 14 ; Psalm 
cvi. 38-40; Ezekiel xx. 24-31 ; Amos v. 26. The last reference 
seems to connect the worship of Moloch with that of the planet 
Saturn. 



214 THE LAW. 

behalf of a purer faith. The frantic orgies of Cybele 
(" Dea Syria"), and of Thammuz, or Adonis, whose 
worship seems to have had reference especially to the 
sun of early spring, belong to our more familiar recol- 
lections of these religions of the East ; and, together 
with the horrors of human sacrifice, subsisted far 
into the era of Christianity. The vindictive Power 
symbolized by " the red planet Mars " had his dwell- 
ing amid the fierce glare of the desert. He was 
named by the Egyptians Typhon, the Destroyer, who 
consumed the propitious overflows of Osiris, or the 
Nile ; and by the Hebrews, Azazel, the rival of Jeho- 
vah, to whom the yearly goat was sent for expiation 
into the wilderness.* 

Two sacred annual seasons were set apart for the 
high solemnities of this elemental worship : one in 
the opening spring, and one in the autumn, or season 
of vintage. Both were kept in the splendours of the 
fall moon, and brought together, for a seven-days' 
festival, the population of tribes and villages. The 
darker and more jealous powers were invoked under 
the impulse of that anxious and superstitions dread 
with which men anticipated the possible disasters of 
the new year ; and their propitiation could be bought 

* Mars was the Star of Edom (" the Red"), which is also identified 
with Azazel, — the same malign power known afterwards as Sammael, 
or Satan. (Eisenmenger, " Entdecktes Judenthum," Vol. I. pp. 645, 
649, 823 ; Vol. II. p. 155.) The Egyptian epithet of Typhon was Ros, 
or red. (Kenrick's Egypt, Vol. II. p. 157.) It is to the ignorance or 
fancy of the Alexandrians that we are indebted for the transforming 
of this into the ritual conception of the " scape-goat." Mr. Gliddon, 
in the "Types of Mankind," makes the name signify lord of death, in 
contrast to Jehovah, the lord of life. 



FESTIVALS AND SACRIFICE. 215 

only by the costly offering of blood. The later sea- 
son brought the joyful festivities of the vintage, or 
harvest-home. Thank-offerings abounded ; the exu- 
berant and teeming forces of nature were celebrated 
with riotous holiday ; and the occasion was the char- 
acteristic Syrian one of mingled blood and lust. 
These, with other traces of antique custom, — as the 
erection of " Bethels " (BatrvXia), said to have been 
frequent among the Canaanites, the consecration of 
" high places " and groves, the " teraphim," or sacred 
images (which have been connected with the Egyp- 
tian rites of Serapis), and sundry rites otherwise un- 
explained, observed with respect to sacrifice, — are 
in part alluded to in the vehement censures of the 
prophets, in part sanctioned and adopted in the 
Hebrew ritual code. 

The characteristic rite of Sacrifice seems to belong 
to the very earliest records of mankind. The story 
of Cain and Abel already indicates the transition from 
the simpler offering of food to the more sacred rites 
of blood. Its first intention was to offer to the Di- 
vinity a chosen portion of every gift with which he 
satisfies human wants. The Altar was originally a 
table, on which food was left to be consumed or re- 
absorbed by the elemental forces of earth and air ; or, 
as popular credulity believed, to be literally eaten by 
the gods. Hence it should be prepared in the most 
savoury way, and every sacrifice must be seasoned 
with salt.* The table of shew-bread is a relic of this 
simplest form of offering. 

The active and living force of flame became the 

* Leviticus ii. 13. 



216 THE LAW. 

obvious representative of the sun, or of the vital en- 
ergy of nature. The altar from a table became a 
hearth ; and the sacred fire was kindled to devour or 
consume the sacrifice. The more precious the offer- 
ing, the more acceptable. If fruits were used, they 
must be first-fruits ; if grain, wheat ; if other posses- 
sions, the fairest of their kind. What had no human 
ownership (as wild fruits or game) could make no 
part of the pious gift. The natural awe with which 
men first behold the flow of blood was deepened by 
the persuasion that it was the peculiar seat of life, or 
the life itself ; and when the more costly gift of do- 
mestic animals was brought, the blood that gushed 
upon the ground, and the fire that consumed the 
flesh, became the essential features of the rite. 

The victim of sacrifice must be an animal " with- 
out spot or blemish," — the nearer to the affections 
of human kind the better. Ascending in the scale of 
preciousness or dignity, the religious feeling craved 
nothing less than the sacrifice of one's child, — the 
eldest or only child. The custom of offering the 
first-born was deeply rooted in the antiquity of the 
race. So tenaciously was it held, that it is cited ex- 
pressly as the type of the paschal lamb ; it furnishes 
a parallel to the religious thought of a writer so late 
as Micah, and an illustration to those who .spoke to 
the Jewish mind of the sacrifice of Christ.* A de- 
tailed examination shows the worships of ancient 
paganism as literally reeking with human blood. f 

* Exodus xiii. 13; Micah vi. 6 ; Hebrews ix. 14. 
t See Magee on the Atonement ; also, Ghillany, " Die Menschen- 
opfer der alten Hebraer," where the investigation is quite sufficiently 



HUMAN SACRIFICE. 217 

Superstitious frenzy or fanaticism, with its cold cru- 
elty, demanded it in streams. The earliest care of a 
humane lawgiver, backed by priestly policy, was to 
provide a substitute. The several forms of ascetic 
penance, the ancient tribal rite of circumcision com- 
mon to both Syria and Africa, and, still later, the 
offering of a vicarious victim, or the payment of a 
stipulated price, were the terms on which this hor- 
rible flow of human blood was stayed. 

Such were the elements of Syrian culture or super- 
stition, which must be assumed as a sort of ground- 
work in the understanding of many features in the 
Hebrew institutions. They made, as it were, an out- 
lying circle of ideas and habits, from which the nation- 
al mind was never completely guarded or divorced. 
How far they were modified by the sojourn in Egypt, 
it is impossible to say ; or how far, within the sacred 
family, they were already outgrown in the patriarchal 
age. This at least we see, that the loftier intelligence 
of Moses himself, combined with the purer and diviner 
truth imparted to him during his desert life, and in- 
terpreted by the Levitical priesthood long after, was 
brought to bear on them, as the religious material 

carried out. In Rome human sacrifices were abolished by a decree of 
the Senate, b. c. 93. " But in many expiatory and lustral rites, the 
shedding of a drop of blood was retained as a type of the ancient usage, 
with which it has frequently been confounded." (Merivale, Fall of the 
Roman Republic, p. 119.) For the custom of burying a human victim 
"alive under every important structure, as a propitiatory sacrifice," — 
of which an example is given in 1 Kings xvi. 34, in the case of the re- 
builder of Jericho, who " laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first- 
born, and set up the gate thereof in his youngest son Senig," — see 
Sophocles's Glossary of Later Greek, p. 613. 
10 



218 THE LAW. 

already existing in the popular mind. Either the 
tenacity with which that shepherd race clung to its 
ancient memories, or the revival of old instincts and 
associations by the contact of friendly tribes during 
the desert wandering, or the alliances and compro- 
mise that succeeded the unfinished slaughter of the 
Canaanites, made a thousand points of contact be- 
tween Hebrew faith and alien customs ; and the 
antique Syrian superstition furnishes the warp upon 
which the nobler people wove the pattern of its re- 
ligious history. 

It is not merely in remote antiquity, but down to 
the most recent period preceding the Captivity, that 
the rites and customs just described were familiar 
and influential among the Hebrews. We find the 
earlier traces of them in the story of Isaac, the narra- 
tive of Jephthah's daughter, and the religious slaugh- 
ter of Agag at the hands of Samuel, with others 
which an over-curious criticism has found or fancied. 
We find frequent mention of the rites of Baal, Mo- 
loch, and Astarte in the annals of the kings, and in 
the undiscriminating censures of the prophets. Even 
at Jerusalem, the head-quarters of the priesthood, 
there was a " vale of Tophet," where Ahaz and Ma- 
nasseh made their children " pass through the fire to 
Moloch. " And nothing seems more clearly shown in 
the history than that the milder Hebrew institutions, 
as we know them, contended at a disadvantage, and 
but very slowly did away what was worst of native 
and local superstition. 

The narrative of the Conquest represents the race 
as just emerging from a nomadic state, the period of 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 219 

the " Wandering," and gaming by force of arms half- 
possession of a comparatively fertile, populous, and 
civilized district. It is at this period that the history 
of the nation, properly speaking, may be said to 
begin. Its numbers, to judge from all we know, 
could hardly at any time before the monarchy have 
exceeded half a million, and in the earlier period 
must have been much less.* Apparently they car- 
ried with them the modes of life characteristic of 
their nomadic state. At the time of Deborah, we 
hear of no fixed habitations, only of tents and sheep- 
folds, though many of the conquerors would no doubt 
occupy the deserted villages of the Canaanites ; and 
in the eastern districts this was the way of life until 
the devastations of Hazael, two centuries after the 
time of David. f The people were so destitute of 
the arts of industry, that to repair their tools they 
must go to the Philistine workshops. They had no 
equipment to compete with the chariots and armour 
of the Canaanites. Saul and his son are even said 
to have been the only Hebrews armed with sword 
or spear ; and Shamgar's sole weapon was an " ox- 
goad." J The horse was never fairly naturalized in 
Israel, though part of the equipage of David's and 
Solomon's royalty. As among some Eastern tribes 
at the present day, bullocks or cows were used for 

* Perhaps the prodigious numbers we find in Exodus, as well as 
Chronicles, may be ascribed to the vastly greater scale of population 
which the Jews found in Babylon. They contrast curiously with the 
slender census of the new colony of Judaea, recording contemporary 
fact. 

t See Joshua xxii. 6 ; Judges v. 24, xx. 8 ; 2 Kings xiii. 5. 

% 1 Samuel xiii. 18-23 ; Judges iii. 31. 



220 THE LAW. 

draught. In travelling, or on state occasions, the 
ass or mule was characteristic of the Hebrews till a 
late day, and became a symbol of the peaceful reign 
of the Messiah.* As a token of the thinly settled 
and distracted condition of the country, even in the 
time of the monarchy, wild beasts seem to have been 
very numerous. Single encounter with a lion was a 
frequent test of Hebrew championship, as shown 
in the stories of Samson, David, and Benaiah ; the 
boys who mocked Elisha were torn by bears ; and 
the new settlers of Samaria, after the Ninevite con- 
quest, found that most fertile district of Palestine so 
overrun by wild beasts as to be almost uninhabitable. 
It is not till the latter part of David's reign that we 
find any trace of the wealth attributed to the patri- 
archs, the Oanaanites, and even to the emigrant 
horde in the desert. Remnants of the conquered 
populations still made, apparently, the majority of 
the inhabitants of Palestine. The stronghold of 
the Jebusites was first subdued by Joab, and the 
Hebrew nationality had not undisputed dominion till 
the time of Solomon. So that, through the earlier 
portion of their history, the tribes of Israel exhibit 
the condition of a sparse nomadic population, dwell- 
ing almost at random among a wealthier, more nu- 
merous, and more cultivated people, which they had 
only half subdued. 

This condition of things easily explains the confu- 
sion we find between Hebrew faith and alien super- 
stitions, as well as the late development of the true 
Hebrew culture. It is only as they existed in their 

* Zechariah ix. 9 



HEBEEW NATIONAL FAITH. 221 

maturity that we can well understand the Mosaic 
institutions ; only by an effort of imagination that 
we can discern their effect on -the mind and temper 
of the earlier time.* In their completed form, they 
yet retained distinctness enough of primitive feature 
to let us trace their parentage or alliances. While 
they were interpreted to accord with a higher circle 
of ideas, and spiritualized in the long ages of the 
nation's life, their Jewish expounders often show 
unconscious traces of those immemorial rites and 
superstitions from which they were so slowly and 
painfully divorced ; and the Hebrew Scriptures 
abound in the same disguised and lurking evi- 
dence. 

But with the first distinct assertion of Hebrew 
nationality we find indications of the spirit which, 
working through the prophets, so powerfully affected 
the nation's mind for good. The earliest relics of 
Hebrew song or story, dating at least as high as the 
age of the Judges, accord well enough with the deep 
reverence and exalted conception associated always 
with that people's thought of God. The Song of 
Deborah, or the Oracle of Jacob, contains no trace of 
the hideous and bloody superstition of the Canaan- 
ites. As surely as it was an expression of the mind 
of that early age, so surely it compels us to think of 
Israel as already well advanced beyond the neigh- 
bouring idolatries, or the gross formalism of Egypt. 
Elevation of the religious thought, culture of the 
religious affection, and development of the religious 
life are vindicated, as from the first the peculiar 

* See page 51. 



222 THE LAW. 

office of this people in history. The circumstances 
which led to the ascendency of the priesthood under 
Eli, and the systematic prophetic culture instituted 
by Samuel, have been before noticed.* We have 
now to consider what was characteristic in the He- 
brew institutions as found in their mature form, 
probably in the more flourishing period of the Mon- 
archy. 

The essential features of the religious and civil 
polity have already been so far indicated as was 
necessary to a clear understanding of the foregoing 
history. f To aid in interpreting the Jewish Scrip- 
tures, as well as in tracing the influence of this 
people upon after forms of religious thought, we 
have to consider, further, a few details of the Civil 
Code, the Ritual, and the Religious Year, or cycle 
of national Religious Festivals. 

I. Civil Code. This includes the rights of Per- 
son, Property, and Family ; and the charge of public 
Health. 

As the basis of personal right, the Law assumes 
the inviolability of human life. This it sanctions 
by the mysterious sacredness of blood (Gen. ix. 6 ; 
Num. xxxv. 33), by the claim of brotherhood (Lev. 
xix. 17), and by the solemn penalties of the code 
(Lev. xxiv. 17). The old instincts or customs of 
the Tribe demanded that the nearest relative of a 
slain man should hunt down the murderer, and 
exact life for life. This is an imperative point of 
honour among a rude and primitive people, let the 
cause of death be accident, quarrel, or wilful mur- 

* See pages 95-98, 102. t See pages 50-59. 






CIVIL CODE. 223 

der;* and so a single chance death might breed a 
blood-stain which generations would not wash out. 
The " avenger of blood " had his recognized com- 
mission among the Hebrews (Num. xxxv. 19 ; Deut. 
xix. 12), restricted only by appointing "cities of 
refuge," where the involuntary offender might be 
safe. As by the old law of Athens, what caused a 
man's death was accursed, whether man or beast. 
No money compensation could be given. (Num. xxxv. 
31, 33.) The vicious ox must die ; his owner, 
too, if the creature was of vicious habit. (Ex. xxi. 
28, 29.) A fatal accident left the stain of blood on 
the house where it befell. (Deut. xxii. 8.) Only the 
sacred limits of the city of refuge could shelter the 
involuntary homicide (Num. xxxv. 26) ; and a re- 
markable ceremony is detailed by which the magis- 
trates of a city, washing their hands over a heifer 
beheaded in a desolate ravine, should clear them- 
selves of the guilt of murder done there, if the 
author of it could not be found. (Deut. xxi. 1 - 8.) 
In a similar spirit, the elder law granted " breach 
for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." (Lev. xxiv. 
30; Ex. xxi. 23-25.) It was the humanity of a 
later code that commuted the penalty afterwards for 
a fine. 

The penalty of death is assumed in a primitive 
code as the one sanction of violated law, — as it was 
in Athens under Draco, and as it is said to be now in 
Japan. Slighter penalties are in theory a substitute 
or commutation. Among the Hebrews, this commu- 
tation for lesser offences might be disfranchisement, 

* Genesis ix. 5. See Layard's " Babylon and Nineveh," p. 305. 



224 THE LAW. 

fine, or a sin-offering. Scourging was rarely inflicted, 
as against the dignity of a freeman ; and in any case 
might not exceed forty stripes (Dent. xxv. 3), 
" lest thy brother should seem vile unto thee." Im- 
prisonment seems to have been unknown until the 
latter portion of the monarchy. 

The original right of property lay not in the indi- 
vidual, but in the family, — the natural assignment 
of what was got by conquest. The family derived 
its title from the tribe or state ; this, again, directly 
from Jehovah. The family estate was in theory in- 
alienable, and must revert to the original holder, or 
his descendants, at least as often as once in fifty 
years. If forfeited by debt or suretyship in the 
mean time, it was still subject to the right of re- 
demption. (Num. xxvii. 8.) The eldest son had 
a double share of the inheritance (Deut. xxi. 17) ; 
and along with it, doubtless, the duty of maintain- 
ing the orphans and widows of the household. Still 
further to secure the same end, a daughter could 
marry only in her own tribe (Num. xxxvi. 8) ; 
and, dying childless, she left her inheritance to her 
brother. No interest money might be taken from a 
Hebrew (Ex. xxii. 25 ; Deut. xxiii. 19) ; and no 
absolute purchase of land could be made, except a 
homestead in a walled town (Lev. xxv. 29, 30). 
These regulations, it is needless to say, underwent 
some change when the bulk of property was no 
longer in land, but in the trades and estates of 
cities. 

Restricted as was the claim of personal property, 
within these limits it was absolute. Stolen goods 



SLAVERY. 225 

must be restored double, — in some cases, four or 
five fold. (Ex. xxii. 1-4.) The penalty of kidnap- 
ping was death. (Ex. xxi. 16.) The indorser shared 
the liability of him he was surety for. (Prov. 
xxii. 26, 27.) The debtor was at the mercy of his 
creditor, and probably became his slave (2 Kings 
iv. 1; Prov. xxii. 7), according to the barbarous 
custom, or common law, of antiquity. So, too, cap- 
tives spared in war. (Josh. ix. 21.) Slaves pur- 
chased from among neighbouring tribes (Lev. xxv. 
44-46) became "bondmen forever," and a "prop- 
erty inheritance to children." 

Among the Hebrews themselves slavery was greatly 
lightened. Religious fellowship and privilege were 
still recognized (Deut. xvi. 10, 11) ; the mutilated 
slave went free (Ex. xxi. 27) ; if a fugitive, he 
might not be rendered back (Deut. xxiii. 15) ; he 
had the right of purchasing his ransom, and the 
certainty of being free after six years of service 
(Ex. xxi. 2). Thus, retaining many of the harsh 
features of ancient law, the Hebrew code did very 
much to mitigate the bondman's bitter lot. It re- 
calls the time when the whole people was captive 
in a strange land : and makes the hardship of the 
past a plea for humanity in the future. (Lev. xxv. 
43 ; Deut. xv. 15, 22, xviii. 22, xxvi. 5.) 

The right of the Family, as the sacred centre of 
the life of the state, was guarded with peculiar care. 
Its prototype was found in the scrupulous severity 
of patriarchal rule. Honour to the aged was sedu- 
lously enjoined. (Ex. xix. 32.) The wife's honour 

(Lev. xx. 10) and the child's obedience (Deut. 
10* o 



226 THE LAW. 

xxi. 18) were enforced by the same sharp penalty 
of death. Widows and orphans were a sacred charge 
to the community. (Ex. xxii. 22.) A man might 
nullify his wife's religious vow (Num. xxx. 8), or 
sell his children into bondage (Ex. xxi. 7). The 
spirit of the Hebrew law restrained the license of 
polygamy and divorce (Ex. xxi. 10 ; Deut xxii. 
19, xxiv. 11), though yielding, in this as in other 
matters, to a sovereign's wilfulness or policy, or the 
sanction of earlier customs. 

Of these was the custom of " levirate marriage," 
by which (as among several Eastern nations) a child- 
less widow might demand of her husband's brother 
to marry her, and so keep unbroken the family inher- 
itance. If he refused, she drew off his sandal and 
spat " to his face," as a ceremony of contempt 
(Deut. xxv. 5-10), and his refusal became a stand- 
ing reproach upon his house. The remarkable or- 
deal of "jealousy" (Num. v. 12-31), and the for- 
bidding of impure rites (Lev. xvii. 7, xx. 2-5), are 
evidence of both the spirit and the circumstances of 
the Hebrew family code. Its general effect, however 
we may interpret it in detail, was to assign to the 
women of Israel a far nobler influence and higher 
social rank than we find them holding among most 
other Asiatic peoples. 

Lastly, the civil code assumed a religious sanction 
in guarding the paramount public interest of Health. 
Food, popular customs, and the diseases of the cli- 
mate, were all put under regulations that made part 
of the religion itself. What was unwholesome was 
stigmatized as " unclean," as well as certain customs 



CARE OF HEALTH. 227 

of desert or city life, from which the state of Israel 
was to be strictly kept apart. Fruit of the first 
three years' bearing was called " uncircumcised," 
and might not be eaten ; that of the fourth year 
was to be made a religious offering. (Lev. xix. 
23-25.) The brutish and loathsome habits that 
belong to nomadic hordes were well guarded against 
by the simple, intelligible precept, to eat no greasy, 
bloody, " dead," or mangled flesh (Lev. vii. 23 ; xi. 
32 ; xxii. 8) ; and to take as food such creatures 
only as " part the hoof and chew the cud," together 
with a restricted list of birds and fishes. No vege- 
table diet was condemned as unclean, — a sufficient 
indication that the motive of the law was sanitary, 
not superstitious. 

Prom the same motive, a dead body could not be 
touched without incurring seven days' " unclean- 
ness" and the grateful ritual of a bath, lest perhaps 
there should be danger of contagion.* Mutilation 
of every sort was prohibited, as well as any mixture 
of breed in plant or animal (Lev. xix. 19) ; and an 
obscure kindred feeling forbade dam and young to 
be killed on the same day (Lev. xxii. 28), or a kid 
to be " seethed in its mother's milk." (Ex. xxxiv. 
26.) The first symptom of the enervating and de- 
structive diseases of a hot climate was met by the 
same vigilant precaution. (Lev. chap, xv.) Espe- 
cially leprosy — that frightful plague by which (to 
trust the tenor of tradition) the Jews in Egypt had 
been almost universally cursed, and which was only 

* See the law respecting the "water of separation." (Num. xix. 
1-22.) 



228 THE LAW. 

partially worn away by the stern regimen of Moses 
— was watched with a certain terror by the Hebrew 
sanitary code. (Lev. chap, xiii.) Its first ominous, 
angry swelling was carefully noted by the priests ; its 
course was duly reported to them at certain inter- 
vals ; and, when beyond their pharmacy, its victim 
was pitilessly banished from all human intercourse.* 
Cruelty to him was the only security to the rest. 

II. Ritual. The Hebrew state was a theocracy. 
Its civil law was merged in ecclesiastical or ritual 
law, which gave it character and sanction. From 
infancy through life every person was subject to its 
vigilant guardianship. The ritual, accordingly, in 
its broader sense, comprehended a large part of the 
civil law, particularly that which had in charge the 
public health. It appointed seasons and forms of 
prayer, and a thousand details of ceremonial. It 
prescribed the rank of the priesthood, and the rules 
of expiatory sacrifice, or fine, — such as the "ran- 
som " for the census. (Ex. xxxviii. 12.) By 
far the greater portion of it becomes a matter of 
mere antiquarian curiosity. What is most charac- 
teristic in it, and essential to a right interpreting of 
Hebrew thought and custom, is that which concerns 
the rites of Circumcision and Sacrifice. 

The rite of Circumcision — common to most of 
the Syrian and several African tribes f — was of the 

* See too the law respecting " leprosy," or unwholesome mould, in 
the walls of a house. (Lev. xiv. 34.) 

t Among the Phoenicians it was a rite of consecration to Saturn. 
(Movers, in Winer.) It was regarded in later ages as a sacrifice to 
Satan of that which is his peculiar share in the human body. (Eisen- 
menger, Vol. I. p. 673.) 



CIRCUMCISION. — SACRIFICE. 229 

nature of a bloody sacrifice (Ex. iv. 24-26), ex- 
piatory, and, in its first sense, a substitute for the 
infant's life. It was performed at the age of eight 
days, and was the initiation into the religious com- 
munity. Hence it became a mark of exclusive privi- 
lege and sanctity, and it is always alluded to as the 
particular badge of the " chosen people." Its sanitary 
use in that climate is well understood, and was doubt- 
less had in view by those who engrafted it upon the 
customs of the race. In later time it came to be 
regarded as a special sacrifice to the evil spirit, and 
a special consecration to Jehovah ; and it formed the 
test question of the divorce between Judaism and 
Christianity. 

The rite of Sacrifice was administered with many 
forms borrowed from Egyptian or Syrian usage, or 
from immemorial custom ; but was invested with a 
significance and an elaborate detail of ceremonial 
quite peculiar to the Hebrews. Its simplest form 
and meaning were recalled by the Table, which stood 
at the side of the sanctuary towards the north (Ex. 
xxvi. 35), where the peculiar habitation of the Deity 
was of old supposed to be. Upon it were piled twelve 
loaves of " shew-bread," strewn with incense (Lev. 
xxiv. 5), — his perpetual food, — which were ex- 
changed each week, the old loaves being eaten by the 
priests. In distinction from more costly gifts, flour 
and oil were even in later time called the " meat- 
offering," or gift of food.* Libations of wine or 
water are a further example of the same general 
meaning. 

* Leviticus ii. 1. See Palfrey's Lectures, Vol. I. p. 245. 



230 THE LAW. 

The Altar, originally of earth or stone, unprofaned 
by any tool (Ex. xx. 24, 25), was the hearth-stone 
and sacred centre of the religion. Its holy fire was 
the especial symbol of the living presence of the De- 
ity. The fire must be always burning (Lev. vi. 13) ; 
and no day or night should pass without the custom- 
ary offering, for thanksgiving or expiation. Fire and 
Blood were the two emblems inseparable from the 
more solemn forms of service, — fire as the symbol of 
Divinity, and blood as the seat of life. Blood could 
not be lawfully touched or used as food. (Lev. vii. 27.) 
No pious man would stain himself with that which 
was the peculiar share of the Lord of life. It was 
" blood that made atonement for the soul " (Lev. xvii. 
11), according to the maxim, " life for life." If not 
sprinkled on the altar, by the requirement of the rit- 
ual, it must be shed on the ground " like water." 
(Deut. xii. 16.) 

In the earlier time, it was not lawful to taste of 
any food of which a part should not have been offered 
in sacrifice. The first sheaf of harvest, and a partic- 
ular portion of each slain beast, must be brought to 
the altar as a" wave-offering " or " heave-offering ; ' : 
and, unless burnt, as in some particular cases (Ex. 
xxix. 25), became the perquisite of the priest. (Lev. 
ii. 12 ; Num. xviii. 8.) In the dark religious terror 
roused by the sense of guilt or sudden calamity, or 
strange natural events, no gift seemed too costly to al- 
lay the Divine wrath. The most elaborate ceremonial 
of the sin-offering did but provide satisfaction for that 
craving instinct so deeply implanted in the religious 
constitution of that primitive age, which sought to be 



BURNT-OFFERING. 231 

appeased even by the hideous sacrifice of children on 
the altar of heathen deities. 

The general name " burnt-offering " denotes the 
original and essential rite, which consisted in the 
utter renunciation to the Deity of some object valu- 
able and dear to man. This was at all times insep- 
arable from the Hebrew ceremonial. It was the daily 
night and morning service of the sanctuary ; and ac- 
companied or made part of every other form of offer- 
ing. The daily victim (Ex. xxix. 39) was a lamb ; 
on the Sabbath two lambs. Rams and goats were 
slain for special services ; and the noblest offering 
of all was a bullock, — which with the Hebrews, as 
among various other nations, was made the repre- 
sentative of certain attributes of the Deity, as we see 
in the imagery of the prophets. Game and the like, 
not being property, could not be brought for sacrifice, 
only these domestic creatures ; and the habit of sym- 
pathy with them among a pastoral people must be 
taken into the account in estimating their fitness to 
represent man's penitence and supplication. The 
only birds esteemed fit for sacrifice were doves or 
pigeons (Lev. v. 7) ; in a single instance a sparrow 
(Lev. xiv. 14). The only relic of the rite among the 
modern Jews is the slaying of a cock or hen. 

The animal in all cases was duly inspected, to as- 
certain if it were sound and fit ; then slain on the 
north side of the altar, the priest's hands being first 
laid upon its head, as a solemn form of expiation or 
" atonement." (Lev. i. 3, 4, 11 ; xxii. 20.) The blood 
was caught in a sacred dish and sprinkled on the 
altar-stones, — the most essential feature of the rite. 



232 THE LAW. 

The flesh was divided in a particular way and burned ; 
reserving " the wave-breast and heave-shoulder," to- 
gether with the hide (Lev. vii. 8, 34), as the per- 
quisite of the priest. In rare cases the victim was 
totally consumed by fire, and became the " whole 
burnt-offering." While the ceremony proceeded, 
those who partook in the service " compassed the 
altar " in sacred procession, with a chant or hymn. 
Incense was employed to mitigate the " sweet savour " 
of the burning flesh, and came by such use to have a 
sacredness of its own, so that it might not be prepared 
for private use. (Ex. xxx. 37.) If wheat was burned 
instead of flesh, a certain proportion of olive-oil (Num. 
xv. 1) was essential to its value as a symbol or sub- 
stitute for the more costly gift. 

The " peace-offering " was the first and simplest 
form of the stated sacrifice, being either the fulfil- 
ment of a vow, or a service of gratitude for the 
divine favour. (Lev. iii. 1 ; vii. 12.) In its original 
sense it was a banquet, of which man partook as a 
guest of his divinity. It demanded a less scrupulous 
inspection of the victim, and permitted the use of 
leavened bread. It was not a required act, but 
purely voluntary. (Lev. xix. 5.) When private 
altars made part of each family establishment, it is 
likely that every animal slain for food was " offered" 
at the altar, the head of the household acting as 
priest. (Lev. xvii. 3, 4.) Thus Saul, as the head 
of the people, built a hasty altar of stones, lest his 
famished troops should do violence to the ancient 
sanctity. (1 Sam. xiv. 33-35.) In later times, 
when the ritual belonged exclusively to the temple 



SIN-OFFERING. 233 

at Jerusalem, the thank-offering became an occa- 
sional thing, and often a banquet to the poor, like 
the costly pomp of sacrifice exhibited by Solomon 
and Josiah. It could be partaken only by those 
legally pure ; and what the multitude of guests did 
not consume was destroyed within three days by fire. 
(Lev. vii. 18, 21.) 

The sin and trespass-offerings made the second 
marked feature of the ritual. It has been called the 
" night-side " of the ceremonial, — a mournful and 
solitary rite, — a single victim being slain, with sad 
formalities, to restore the broken harmony between 
man and God. 

The "sin-offering" (Lev., chap, iv., v.) was the 
expiation of that whole sum of offences which a man 
or a people has committed ignorantly ; or, in some 
cases, of ritual impurity. (Lev. xii. 6.) Its origin 
was in that vague feeling of guilt which refers all 
natural calamity to human fault, — a feeling consti- 
tutionally strong and perpetually worked on among 
the Hebrews, and leading to most costly and solemn 
acts of propitiation. By the usual form, — the laying 
on of hands, — the sin to be atoned for was first laid 
upon the creature's head, which thenceforth became 
" most holy," or wholly devoted to Jehovah. A spe- 
cial provision required that in certain cases a part 
should be eaten by the priest (Lev. vi. 28 ; x. 16) ; 
otherwise, the blood only was sprinkled for expiation 
or poured in a pool about the altar, and the body 
burned whole in some place outside the consecrated 
ground. For priest or people a bullock must be 
slain ; for a ruler, a male kid ; for a private offender, 



234 THE LAW. 

a female kid or lamb ; but the poor might offer " two 
turtle-doves or two young pigeons ; " and for the very- 
poor a measure of fine flour without oil or incense 
was the substitute. 

The " trespass-offering " was for special known 
offences, or for ritual impurity. (Lev. v. 6, 17.) 
Besides the legal penalty, or restitution (Lev. vi. 4), 
this ritual was necessary to expiate the religious 
guilt of the offence. It was purely private and per- 
sonal in its character. Its end was to restore to the 
Hebrew the spiritual privilege he had forfeited by 
crime ; and the victim corresponds to the less costly 
form of sin-offering. These two constituted the chief 
resource of that ritual discipline, which was so sedu- 
lously employed in the training of the Hebrew con- 
science. 

III. Festivals. The institution of the Sabbath, 
or weekly holiday, has already been noticed as a fea- 
ture in the primitive Syrian worship, — the seventh 
day of the week being especially consecrated to the 
worship of the universal Deity. Adopting the cus- 
tom, the Hebrew law engrafted on it its own more 
spiritual uses. In its first sense, it was simply a day 
of rest. Its sanction refers to the repose of God after 
the six days' work of creation (Ex. xx. 11) or of 
Israel, after Egyptian bondage. (Deut. v. 15.) This 
feature of it is reproduced and enforced by the hu- 
mane provision of the law. It is fortified with the 
most stringent enactments ; its violation chastised by 
the penalty of death. (Num. xv. 32 - 36.) The day 
was especially Jehovah's day ; its profanation was 
sacrilege or rebellion. Being assigned also for spe- 



SABBATH MONTH AND SABBATH YEAE. 235 

cial rites of expiation, in connection with the greater 
festivals, it speedily gathered holy associations of its 
own. It became a season not of idleness or holiday 
merely, but of religious instruction and reminis- 
cences. The services of the sanctuary were made 
more solemn by a stated " whole burnt-offering," and 
twice the complement of the daily sacrifice. Its 
sanctity was even enhanced by the lapse of time. 
The later Jews would perish rather than profane the 
Sabbath by self-defence in a siege ; and a peculiar 
Sabbath ritual is not only the most burdensome of 
their modern observances, but the neglect of it made 
one of their first reproaches against the spirit and 
method of the ministry of Jesus. 

The seventh-day festival is the simplest element of 
the Hebrew religious year, and fixes the type of its 
festal cycle. Besides the week of seven days, there 
was the great week, or " week of weeks," consisting 
of fifty days, and intervening (for example) between 
the Passover and Pentecost. This again would nearly 
divide the year by seven, the lunar twelvemonth con- 
sisting of a little more than seven sabbath months. 
This theoretic partition of the sacred year probably 
had its influence in assigning the seasons of great 
national festivals. 

Each seventh year was, likewise, a season of rest 
and religious instruction.* It was called the Sabbath- 
year, or " year of release." The land should lie 
fallow : even fruit or grapes might not be gathered, 
— a severe lesson of thrift and foresight, if ever 

* Leviticus xxv. 2-7, 18-22. These latter verses should intervene 
before v. 8. 



236 THE LAW. 

actually enforced.* What grew without human cul- 
ture, or from the chance scattering of the last har- 
vest, was left free to be consumed by man or beast, 
— a special provision of charity for the poor. (Ex. 
xxiii. 11.) The soil of Palestine, sterile in compari- 
son with the rich valley of the Nile, may have seemed 
to the conquerors to have needed these periods of 
rest, — an imperfect anticipation of more scientific 
husbandry. But among the perils, invasions, and 
revolutions of the realm, it is hard to find room for 
the realizing of this scrupulous economy ; and it has 
been greatly suspected to be only one of the ideal 
features of the theocracy, not observed before the 
Captivity, but only by the more rigid Judaism of a 
later day. Its existence, then, is noticed by Josephus, 
Tacitus, and others ; but in the sacred writings the 
sabbath-year is spoken of as equivalent to a season 
of ravage (Lev. xxvi. 34) ; as if the seventy years' 
desolation should make up for the neglected observ- 
ance of the times of rest, for the whole duration of 
the monarchy. 

Seven of these periods, or great years, brought 
round the cycle of the half-century. (Lev. xxv. 8 - 17, 
23-54.) The year of Jubilee was announced by 
solemn proclamations of the priests, as the season of 
the restoration of all things, and a time of religious 
joy. The theory of the commonwealth supposed 
every family estate to revert then to its first pos- 
sessor. Debts were extinguished, and the slave for 

* A great annoyance in later times to the Roman tax-gatherers, who 
were compelled to respect what they styled the pious laziness of the 
Jews. (Josephus, Antiq., XIV. 10, 6. Tacitus, Hist., V. 4.) 



JUBILEE. — THE SEVEN FEASTS. 237 

debt was again free. The extremes of riches and 
poverty, so far as they exist at all among a people of 
so simple manners as the early race of Israel, were 
reduced to comparative equality. It was in its theory 
as equitable a solution as the genius of the legislator 
could devise to the deepest social problem. If it 
failed in practice, — which the declarations of the 
prophets make but too apparent, — it was because 
the conditions suited to the rude economy of a clan 
are outgrown in the complicated relations of a 
wealthy and commercial state. The institution of 
the Jubilee, whether ever realized or not after the 
model prescribed in the Levitical code, stands as a 
monument of the far-seeing policy and humane 
intention of those who laid the foundation of the 
Hebrew commonwealth. 

The type found in the primitive institution of the 
Sabbath is thus carried out in each larger division of 
time, and marks the recurring seasons of religious 
holiday. The great annual feast-days seem to have 
been distributed with an obscurer reference to the 
same model. They include seven yearly seasons of 
sacred commemoration ; * not observing, however, 
the intervals of the great week, or month of fifty 
days. No celebration took place in the winter. The 
year was divided into two equal parts ; and the 
sacred seasons were grouped about the ancient ob- 
servance of the spring and autumn festivals. 

* These, according to Philo, are : 1 . Passover ; 2. First-Fruits ; 
3. Unleavened Bread;. 4. Pentecost; 5. Trumpets; 6. Atonement; 7. 
Tabernacles. To complete the decade, he adds the daily, Sabbath, and 
new-moon solemnities. 



238 THE LAW. 

Of the seven special occasions thus provided for in 
the theory of the ritual, only five require distinct 
notice. 

The religious year began just after the spring 
equinox, — the season when the Syrian festival cele- 
brated the new birth of the returning sun. On the 
fourteenth of the month,* or eve of the first full 
moon, a lamb was slain for sacrifice by every house- 
hold, and eaten as in haste, with unleavened bread 
and bitter herbs. It was a rite of expiation, and of 
preparation for the coming solemnities ; and its mem- 
ories were the more solemn, that they recalled the 
deliverance of the people when in silence and haste 
they fled from Egyptian bondage. 

This was the feast of Passover. The blood of the 
slain lamb was sprinkled on the door-posts, — or 
afterwards on the altar, — the usual ceremony of ex- 
piation. It was then roasted whole, supported on 
two pomegranate stakes, one passing through the 
breast, and forming with the other the figure of a 
cross. f It was a mournful and silent meal, partaken 
only by men. The lamb was the substitute, or " ran- 
som," of the first-born child ; % as if this were in ear- 

* Leviticus xxiii. 5. Originally the tenth (Exodus xii. 3), leav- 
ing before the succeeding festival an interval of half a ten-day week, 
of which traces have been fancied in the earliest time (Genesis 
xxiv. 55). 

t Which adds to the significance of the allusion in 1 Corinthians 
v. 7. See Justin, Trypho, p. 117. 

X See Exodus (xii. 13, 23 ; xiii. 2, 15 ; xxii. 29), which connects it 
with the death of the Egyptian first-born. These and other allusions 
have suggested the opinion that the Passover is the relic of a more an- 
cient rite, in which a child was slain, and its flesh tasted in the cruel 
sacrament, — a rite which popular credulity has perpetually charged 



PASSOVEK AND PENTECOST. 239 

lier time a forfeit to the dark Power whose favour for 
the year the old superstition sought thus bloodily to 
propitiate. 

The name Passover belongs strictly to the prelim- 
inary rite, but is often applied to the seven days' 
" feast of unleavened bread " that followed. The 
solemn act of propitiation having been performed, 
and all impurities of fermented matter and the like 
having been removed, the ensuing festival heralded 
the new life of the opening year. Some early ears 
of the new wheat-harvest were brought as a" wave- 
offering " before the altar (Lev. xxiii. 10) ; these 
kept in mind the original sense of the feast, which re- 
quired a banquet of first-fruits. They were pounded, 
parched, and made into unleavened bread.* Until 
the harvest had been thus religiously partaken, it was 
not lawful for it to be used at all.f The seven days 
made one of the grand religious celebrations of the 
whole people. All were supposed to share in its 
solemnities ; and even those who dwelt as far away 
as Babylon or Rome might be represented in the 
sanctuary by their annual gift. 

The Pentecost was the " feast of first-fruits," or 
the thanksgiving for the completed harvest. It was 
also religiously associated with the giving of the Law, 
as the Passover with the escape from Egypt. It was 

upon the Jews at the season of Easter. (See Eisenmenger.) The 
blood of criminals put to death at this season was firmly believed to 
possess an expiatory value. 

* Originally a sign of haste (Exodus xii. 39), — as Tacitus will have 
it, because the Jews were hurrying away as thieves. 

t A dispensation is said to have been allowed to the hot valley of 
Jericho, where the harvest is some two weeks earlier. 



240 THE LAW. 

a sequel to the earlier festival. It followed at an 
interval of seven weeks , and made the third and 
closing season of spring holiday. The wheat-harvest 
had all been gathered in the interval ; and that the 
poorest might share in the joy of the festivity, it was 
humanely provided that the grain should be loosely 
gathered, and a liberal gleaning left. (Lev. xix. 9 ; 
xxiii. 22.) Tithes of the harvest, with their accom- 
paniment of oil and leavened cakes (a sign that the 
harvest was now free for unlimited use), made the 
popular contribution for the support of the priestly 
body, — a support augmented by fines and the per- 
quisites of sacrifice. 

The still more imposing series of autumn festivals 
was introduced by the day of annual Atonement, — 
the tenth of the seventh month, and the great Sab- 
bath of the year. (Lev. chap, xvi.) It was preceded 
by a " holy convocation," or the " day of blowing of 
trumpets " ( Lev. xxiii. 24 ; Num. xxix. 1) ; and 
was the day of solemn expiation for the sins of priest 
and people, that, cleared from the stain of guilt, 
they might be free to join in the approaching festivi- 
ties. For a week previous (Lev. viii. 33) the high- 
priest dwelt almost in solitude, undergoing perpetual 
acts of penance, lest any ritual impurity should unfit 
him for his office. The day, which commenced at 
sunset, was kept strictly as a fast, and a season of 
mournful solemnities. At midnight the service 
of the priest began, with formal cleansings pre- 
scribed by the ritual code. The great sacrifice of 
Atonement marked the most solemn moment of the 
Jewish calendar. It was the crisis of the religious 



DAY OF ATONEMENT. 241 

year, the culminating act of the ceremonial. On 
this day, and no other, the veil of the inner sanctu- 
ary was put aside, and the high-priest stood face to 
face before Jehovah. Bearing a vessel of incense 
which he dropped upon a censer of live coals from 
the great altar, darkening the shrine with its dense 
smoke, he brought first the blood of a bullock slain 
as a sin-offering for himself, which he sprinkled seven 
times upon the ark. Then followed the remarkable 
rite of expiation for the people. Two goats, alike in 
age, colour, and size, were led before the sanctuary ; 
and one was assigned by lot "to Jehovah," the 
other " to Azazel," the malign power of the wilder- 
ness. The first was slain as a sin-offering, in the 
usual form, and the blood sprinkled in like manner 
on the mercy-seat* and sanctuary floor, where it 
mingled with that of the bullock previously slain ; 
and all that remained was poured out upon the great 
brazen altar. Thus the shrine, the sanctuary, and 
the altar were successively purified. Upon the head 
of the other goat, by a solemn form of imprecation, 
were then laid the offences of the people that might 
expose them to the hostile power ; f and he was then 

* See the interesting exposition of this rite given by Mr. Martineau, 
in Lect. VI. of the " Liverpool Lectures," p. 58. 

t Such seems the more obvious meaning of this portion of the rite, 
which has, however, been very variously interpreted. A similar custom 
is related of some Asiatic islanders, who " send a model canoe, cursed 
and laden with the sins of the people, far away on the ocean ; " also 
of certain tribes that make a horse the bearer of their ritual burden. 
As the doctrine of evil spirits made no part of the earlier Hebrew 
creed, it has been suggested that Azazel was "only a liturgical idea." 
Perhaps the name is easiest understood as suggesting something like 
the Greek notion of the infernal deities. 

11 p 



242 THE LAW. 

driven away to the supposed haunt of demons in the 
wilderness. Lastly, the animals already slain for 
sacrifice were totally consumed with fire. 

This most solemn and remarkable act of the He- 
brew ritual ushered in, at five days' interval, the last 
and greatest of the national holidays, — the feast 
of Tabernacles. If the fast and sacrifice of Atone- 
ment were the most mournful, the feast that followed 
was the occasion of the most unbounded and even 
riotous joy.* It was at the autumnal equinox, — the 
close of the year's labours. It celebrated the ripe- 
ness of the vintage, the gathering in of all the fruits, 
the full and luxuriant bounty of the God that ruled 
the year. For eight days the people dwelt in booths 
(Lev. xxiii. 40), or huts woven of green boughs and 
decked with festoons of rich foliage, recalling, by a 
double allusion, the old Syrian festivities of harvest- 
home and the memories of a camp-life in the wilder- 
ness. The dignity and splendour of this festival 
were augmented by time. At first it was held of less 

* The following is Plutarch's description of this festival, interesting 
to us as a Jewish custom seen with the eyes of a Greek : " The great- 
est and most sumptuous festival of the Jews is in time and manner 
like that of Dionysus. For during the so-called fast at the flush of 
vintage, they spread tables with a variety of fruit, and set them under 
booths woven mostly of vine and ivy, calling the earlier part of the 
feast, Tabernacles. A few days later they observe another festival, 
which, without doubt and obviously, is that of the so-called Bacchus. 
This celebration is a bearing of bowls and festoons, during which they 
carry wreathed staffs (thyrsi) into the temple. What they do there we 
know not ; most likely it is a Bacchic feast ; for, in calling upon their 
God, they use little horns, as the Greeks at the Dionysiacs. Others 
advance playing on the harp ; these they call Levites, deriving this name 
either from the title Lysius, or more likely from Evius" (Quoted 
by Winer.) 



TABERNACLES. 243 

account than some of the other holidays. From the 
Conquest to the Captivity it is even said (Neh. viii. 
17) to have been never once observed. But in 
course of time it came to be more magnificent than 
all. The week was a season of continual sacrifice 
and festivity. Besides thank-offerings brought by 
private hands, and other prescribed acts of devotion, 
including the sacrifice of two rams and fourteen 
lambs each day, seventy bullocks were slain, com- 
mencing with thirteen on the first day and diminish- 
ing to seven on the last. Water drawn from sacred 
springs was poured out with bowls of wine, in glad 
libations. A grand illumination with the candela- 
bras of the temple, lighting up (it was said) the 
entire city, a religious procession with flutes and 
songs, and a popular dance by moonlight, closed the 
holy week. As the last of the sacred seasons, and 
the termination of the festal year, nothing was omit- 
ted that could make the ceremonial splendid and 
imposing. And on each returning seventh or Sab- 
bath-year, this was the appointed time for the public 
reading of the Law (Deut. xxxi. 10, 11) and the 
reviving of the august memories of the nation's 
early history. 

Thus the three great feasts of Passover, Pentecost, 
and Tabernacles, with the day of annual fasting and 
Atonement, made the marked features of the year, 
and the most characteristic events of the religious 
life among the Hebrews. It will have been seen how 
they cluster about the ancient seasons of Syrian fes- 
tivity ; and how, if on the one hand they recall the 
incidents of that period which shaped the first ele- 



244 THE LAW. 

ments of the national existence, on the other hand 
their significance shades away, and becomes blended 
with memories of an earlier worship. The ground- 
work of Canaanitish custom was assumed, and turned 
to the new demands of Hebrew faith, precisely as 
the popular festivities of Italy, the Saturnalia and the 
Etruscan ceremonial, were adopted into the ritual of 
Christian Rome. The real aim of those who framed 
the Levitical institutions is seen in this, — that they 
sanctioned nothing of those primeval rites so identi- 
fied with the people's oldest reverence and affections, 
without moulding it to serve a higher purpose, and 
attaching to it a secondary meaning, derived from 
what was essential in the true faith of Israel. 

The precise era of the transformation thus effected 
it would be impossible to tell with any certainty. 
Constant tradition, together with the earliest literary 
monuments, attributes it to Moses. But a system of 
law is not made in a day. A religious, any more 
than a political, constitution cannot be fabricated out- 
right, and wrought perforce into the thought and 
life of an entire people. To engraft new fruit even 
on an old stock, to attach a higher order of ideas 
to an hereditary ritual, is a task of ages. How 
early was this task accomplished among the He- 
brews ? Their history, down to the captivity, shows 
us almost the whole population adhering obstinately 
to traditions and usages which were relics of an an- 
cient superstition, blindly prone even to the most 
revolting and abhorrent rites of an idolatrous faith ; 
while, on the other hand, its religious teachers are 
acting generally in the spirit of a purer creed, con- 



HEBEEW INSTITUTIONS AND FAITH. 245 

tending at odds against a fanaticism they seek to 
bring within bounds, sedulously cherishing a senti- 
ment of national unity as opposed to the petty hos- 
tilities of the clan, and fortifying it by reverence to 
the nation's God, as opposed to the alien deities of 
tribes more barbarous than their own.* In the 
course of ages that revolution was brought about, 
of such infinite moment to the religious destinies of 
mankind. Judaea alone, when the " fulness of time " 
was come, was fitted to utter the Word which had 
power to bring new life to a corrupt and sceptical 
age. Its people, who would not share the grander 
faith of the future, have continued the standing 
miracle of history by their loyal adherence to the 
religion of the past. 

The agents of this revolution were the long line 
of the prophetical men of Hebrew history, begin- 
ning with Moses and ending not till after the Captiv- 
ity. Its instrument was the gradual building up of 
those institutions whose main features have now been 
traced. Without entering into questions of purely 
literary criticism, we may regard these institutions as 
having their root in primitive local rites and sacred 
customs of the tribe, allied we know not how nearly 
with similar rites and customs among surrounding 
nations ; then gradually gathered, classified, revised, 
recast, after the central spirit or idea of a higher 
form of faith, and so wrought up into a code of ec- 

* See Ex. xxiii. 24, 33; Lev. xx. 2. The later law (see Deut. 
vii. 2-5; xii. 2, 3, 29-31 ; xvi. 21) seems even more conscious of 
invading Syrian superstitions, indicating probably a maturer develop- 
ment of the Mosaic faith. 



246 THE LAW. 

clesiastic or levitical law, such as we find in the pres- 
ent Hebrew Scriptures, expanding indefinitely from 
the type which an unchallenged tradition assigned to 
Moses, 

To a process such as this the existence and the 
gradually increasing power of the Priesthood were 
essential. In the patriarchal state its functions 
were exercised by the head of the household, and the 
chief priest was the chieftain of the clan. The sacred 
office descended with the birthright to the eldest son ; 
and the result would be a multitude of local rites 
utterly divorced from one another, and a hopeless dis- 
persion of the people among adjacent tribes. How 
near the people of Israel were to incurring this fatal- 
ity, the history has shown. After six centuries of 
struggle, it ingulfed five sixths of them. 

But in the construction of their nationality, under 
Moses or his successors, the needful counterpoise, or 
centralizing power, was secured by appointing one 
sacred tribe, the Levites, as the delegated officials of 
the people in all religious offices. (Num. iii. 12 ; 
viii. 15.) At what time this change was introduced 
it is impossible to tell. It seems easiest to connect it 
with the establishment of the sanctuary at Jerusalem, 
under the auspices of the Monarchy.* In memory 
of the elder custom, the first-born son in every house- 
hold, down to this day, purchases his exemption from 
the service of the altar by a nominal sum of head- 

* See pp. 126, 156. No reference is made to the Levitical body in 
the books of Kings ; and only a single doubtful notice ( 1 Samuel vi. 
15) appears from the time of the Conquest to the later records of the 
Monarchy. Samuel, the model priest, was of the tribe of Ephraim. 



LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD. 247 

money (Num. iii. 47), paid when lie receives the rite 
of circumcision and his name. The males of the 
tribe of Levi, not otherwise disqualified, were bound 
to the service of the sanctuary from twenty-five to 
fifty, the flower of their life. Being set apart, and 
attached by an equal alliance to every portion of the 
people, they were in theory exempt from civil duties, 
and shared no portion of the conquered territory. 
Their townships were assigned by lot or free gift. 
(Num. xxxv. 2.) Their support must be from tithes 
(Lev. xxvii. 30) and voluntary offerings at the altar. 
A poor and vagabond priesthood it must have been 
mostly in the earlier time,* if the complete theory of 
it was then conceived at all, and until the splendid 
era of the national life, when it shared the glory of 
the monarchy that gave it dignity and strength. Sub- 
sequent to the Captivity, during the struggles and 
short-lived independence of the little state of Judaea, 
it attracted to itself all the functions of government, 
and remained still powerful in its narrowing sphere 
down to the final conquest by the Romans. 

The ritual which was developed under the growing 
power of the priesthood gradually formed a cluster 
of religious associations about the spots of peculiar 
sacredness. Ancient rites of high places, and family 
altars, so frequent in the early periods of the history, 
were superseded by degrees, as the centralizing pol- 
icy of monarchy and hierarchy became established. 
The Sanctuary, which had been removed from Shiloh 
to Nob, Gibeon, or elsewhere, as danger or policy 

* See the story of the Levite, in Judges, chap. xvii. and xviii. He 
was "of the family of Judah." 



248 THE LAW. 

might require, was finally transferred to Jerusalem, 
and transformed into the magnificent temple of Solo- 
mon. Here the ceremonies of the religion acquired a 
splendour wholly unmatched by anything in the past. 
The Levitical establishment became part of the pomp 
of royalty, — however uncertain its fortunes, exposed 
to the shifting inclinations of the kings. The Leviti- 
cal law, adopting the still remaining features of early 
custom which it was impotent to overthrow, easily 
adjusted them to the new scale of magnitude and 
the new order of ideas. Reverence for the temple 
and for the holy city was fortified by all that could 
be engrafted or retained of the antique symbolism, 
inherited as it were along with the patriarchal blood. 
The elaborate ceremonial, with its crowd of petty 
services, and its numberless cases of casuistry, legal 
adjudication, and sanitary police, furnished abundant 
occupation for the throng of priests, with their chiefs 
and menials. The policy was right in its inception ; 
and doubtless it saved to the world the very existence 
of the Hebrew nationality and name. Nor were the 
prestige and privilege of the priest too great, if we 
consider him as commissioned to sustain the interest 
of the higher type of faith, and as the guardian of the 
nation's religious centre. For that, he needed all 
the authority, power, and dignity reflected from the 
throne. 

But the history has already shown that this great 
advantage was not got without its heavy price. The 
popular affection and faith, nourished on hill-top or 
in grove, or within the charmed circle of local rites, 
would not bear transplanting. By its change of 



FORMALISM AND IDOLATRY. * 249 

place the antique ritual suffered the loss of its iden- 
tity. The old Hebrew spirit was averse alike to the 
religious innovations and the despotic centralizing 
of the monarchy. The division of the kingdom has 
been exhibited (see page 172) as the protest of the 
more ancient elements in the life of Israel against 
the policy that invaded them. The lingering super- 
stitions of the country, the relics of Syrian or Ca- 
naanitish devotion, the horrid rites even of Baal, 
Moloch, and Ashtoreth, must seem to many the more 
genuine inheritance of the elder time.* While Le- 
vitic ritual flourished in the royal sanctuary, and 
began to gather its own circle of tradition and to 
gain a reflected sanctity, the corruptions of the old 
idolatry became more rife than ever in the provinces. 
The whole people, said the better religious teachers, 
was given over to them. The priests were corrupt, 
the prophets resorted to omens, magic, oracles, and 
spells,! while the jealousy of the northern kingdom 
against Judah was fostered by the policy of its kings. 
The Hebrew religion was essentially and at first a gen- 
uine protest against the grossness of surrounding idol- 
atry. In its better days, and while served by its better 
men, it fulfilled this purpose well. But it retained 
all along innumerable features that allied it with the 
superstitions it could riot wholly overcome ; and now 
that the ritual was fully matured, and brought to its 
consummate form in the temple at Jerusalem, these 
led, on the one hand, to a slavish formalism that 

* An opinion defended by Ghillany, and boldly assumed in Mackay's 
" Progress of the Intellect." 

t See Jeremiah v. 31 ; xxxii. 32 - 35. 
11* 



250 THE LAW. 

made its meanest act symbolic of something in the 
spiritual realm of God ; and, on the other hand, to 
that recreancy and degeneracy which finally scattered 
ten twelfths of the people into blank oblivion, and 
sank their nationality forever. 

The danger of such an institution was, of overload- 
ing the religion with the multiplicity of forms ; of di- 
vorcing itself from the antique simplicity and popular 
temper of the true Hebrew mind ; of smothering the 
life in what was projected as its safeguard and de- 
fence ; of giving birth to a new order of supersti- 
tions, as alien from the true faith committed to it as 
those it was meant to suppress ; or of compromising 
unworthily with those customs, whose forms it re- 
tained, while professing to invest them with a new 
significance. 

It would have been against the experience of all 
history, if these dangers had been constantly averted. 
The Hebrew priesthood became, like other priest- 
hoods, formalistic, domineering, and corrupt.* It 
oppressed the people with the growing enormity of 
tithes, forced donations, multiplied fines and burden- 
some penance. f It lost the popular heart. The 
splendours of the capital and the seclusion of sacred 
courts estranged it from the true temper of the na- 
tional faith. Its integrity wavered with the chang- 
ing and despotic policy of the kings. And it re- 
quired the severe winnowing of a long captivity, the 
sorrows of exile, and the close community of feeling 
in a little colony after their restoration to the sacred 

* See Jeremiah i. 18 ; ii. 8 ; v. 31. t See Ezekiel xxxiv. 2-4. 



THE PROPHETS. 251 

hills of Judah, to unite priest and people upon the 
strict model of the later Judaism. 

Meanwhile, we must recognize an influence gradu- 
ally developed from within, which strove perpetually 
to recall the primitive spirit and intent of the He- 
brew faith. There existed in Israel, from the earliest 
time, a class of bolder and more earnest men, standing 
more independently each by his own conviction and 
form of thought. These men were now closely allied 
with the priesthood ; now they protested vehemently 
against its faults. Their appeal was to the popular 
heart and imagination, for encouragement or re- 
proach. They were now favoured and now perse- 
cuted by the kings. They were the orators, the 
poets, the preachers of the declining state of Israel. 
They were the honourable succession of the Hebrew 
Prophets. 



VIII. THE PROPHETS. 

AS the Hebrew institutions were the mature and 
regenerated form of rites and customs dating 
far back in the immemorial antiquity of the race, 
so in the Prophets was manifested the characteristic 
religious genius of that race. This genius it was 
which worked perpetually on the material found in 
the national mind or inherited in its traditions. It 
powerfully tempered the Hebrew spirit and character. 
It gave its distinctive colouring to political events and 
institutions. It confirmed the native tendency and 
guided the best culture of the popular mind. It re- 
flected the nation's life and fortunes in a literature 
of high and peculiar order, and so became its especial 
representative to later ages. Finally, — which most 
concerns our present purpose, — it was the influence 
which moulded the nation's mind and morals from 
within ; the first or spontaneous element in its relig- 
ious progress ; and so the needful preparation for 
the after stages of that evolution which made this 
people the harbinger of spiritual life to the entire 
family of mankind. 

In our historic theories, indeed, we may regard 
every extinct nationality as a growth never quite 
completed ; as the germ of a larger life not yet devel- 



FUNCTION OF PROPHECY. 253 

oped ; as prophetic of what only a distant future can 
bring to fulfilment. But the Hebrews are nearly if 
not quite alone in consciously accepting this as their 
appointed destiny. Their gifted men were powerfully 
aware of a mission connecting them with the future 
yet more vitally than with the past, and constructed 
their forms of religious thought or national develop- 
ment in the vast spaces of an endless Hereafter. This 
it is which distinguishes that race from every other, 
and makes the religious value of its history inex- 
haustible. 

Such was the peculiar place, and one eminent ser- 
vice, of the prophetical office among the Hebrews. 
But, in interpreting the phrase to the modern mind, 
we have to free it of its accidental modern associa- 
tions, especially those which identify it with a partic- 
ular department of the Hebrew literature. Prophecy, 
in the original sense of it, was " not a literature, but 
an act." It included in its larger meaning all that 
we understand by the term " spiritual power," as 
distinguished from the temporal power of the state, 
and (though more loosely) from the ecclesiastical 
power of the priesthood. In other words, it implied 
all the religious, moral, and intellectual agencies 
brought to bear vitally on the popular mind and con- 
science, — all, of course, limited by the standard of 
culture in a rude age, and shaped by the peculiar 
religious temperament of an Oriental people. It 
might be, and it often was, administered by a priest 
in full orders ; but in its essence it was altogether 
distinct. The priest had to do with the ritual and 
the stated services. He was, so to speak, the nation's 



254 THE PKOPHETS. 

delegate to the throne of its invisible Sovereign; 
his office was, to propitiate his offended majesty, 
and supplicate his royal favour. The Prophet — the 
" Seer," or man of vision, as he was called at first* — 
was the delegate of Jehovah to his people. He was 
emphatically a man of action and popular address. 
His sphere of activity was abroad among the people. 
His influence was one of the determining forces in 
each critical exigency of the state. In the civil and 
political life of the nation, as well as in the courses 
of its religious thought, his position is at once indis 
pensable and unique. 

The authority and prestige of such an office were 
sustained by a numerous well-recognized body. The 
class of men called prophets are reckoned not by soli- 
tary individuals, but by companies, and even by hun- 
dreds.! Especially as the ritual establishment ac- 
quires coherency and shape, they appear more and 
more distinctly in the exercise of their peculiar func- 
tion. Samuel, in his restoring or recasting of the 
national polity, gathered them in groups and estab- 
lished schools for their special training. Young men 
of forward and active genius would throng together 
in them to learn the art of minstrelsy and the use of 
speech and writing, together with such mechanical or 
medical skill as the age could furnish. David's faith- 
ful companion in exile and counsellor in the decline 
of his strength, the prophet Gad, gives a probable ex- 
ample of the associations of this early culture. The 
prophetic schools were a noble conception of the 
last and greatest of the Judges, remarkable for that 

* 1 Sam. ix. 9. t Ibid. x. 10, xix. 20; 1 Kings xviii. 4, xxii. 6. 



SCHOOLS OF THE PROPHETS. 255 

age, and invaluable in the after history of the nation. 
They furnished the rallying-point of intellect and re- 
ligious zeal. The sacred traditions and early records 
of the race must probably have perished but for this 
germ of a national University. The arts which re- 
quire most patient and elaborate method in their 
learning would scarcely have existed without such 
aid. The very forms and fragments of written his- 
tory which have been preserved to us are doubtless 
in great part what after compilers borrowed from 
" the book of Samuel the seer, and the book of Na- 
than the prophet, and the book of Gad the seer," or 
from the later annals of Iddo and Shemaiah.* So 
that, for whatever made the Hebrews great as a 
people, or gave their history instruction and avail 
for after times, they were mainly indebted to that 
guardianship which Samuel and his successors ex- 
ercised over the frail and early germs of their mental 
life. 

Those who are at all acquainted with the religious 
history of the East will be at no loss to account for 
the profound influence at all times exercised upon the 
popular mind by this body of enthusiastic, earnest, 
and comparatively well-cultured men. Courses of a 
powerful and headlong fanaticism are familiar events 
in that history. Keligious extravagance and frenzy 
are familiar facts in the mental physiology of Eastern 
races. The religious terror that gave its crushing 
weight to Oriental theocracy was easily roused by any 

* 1 Chronicles xxix. 29 ; 2 Chronicles ix. 29. The books of Kings 
and Chronicles probably afford us a fair comparison between the men- 
tal qualities of the prophets and the priesthood. 



256 THE PROPHETS. 

vision, omen, or appeal, whether coming in the course 
of natural events or in the word of an inspired man. 
What might not be easily reconciled to a cooler tem- 
perament or a different way of life becomes natural 
and familiar when transferred to the soil of the East : 
where to the wild Arab the lonely desert is still popu- 
lous with phantoms, and its drear silence haunted 
with misleading demon-voices.* The dry and elec- 
tric air may have its subtile influence, or the fierce 
glare of the sun, or the mysterious affinities of race, 
affecting the temperament of brain and nerve. What 
we know is, that facts rare and abnormal in Western 
climates or among Western races, are offered daily to 
the incredulity of Eastern travellers ; and by what- 
ever name we call them, they must greatly affect 
our judgment of visions and wonders recounted 
among such a people, — still more of their popular 
effect. 

The same quality that makes one man a seer or 
enthusiast will, in feebler degree, make a multitude 
susceptible of the most powerful impression from his 
words. To the Orientals the Franks have always 
seemed cold and irreligious. Among themselves the 
race of prophets and visionaries, and the answering 
floods of popular fanaticism, never cease. The sud- 
den triumphs of Islam are to be accounted for by no 
device of imposture or lunacy, but by laws profoundly 
written in the human constitution and working out 
under the influences of an Eastern clime. A roving 
Christian preacher at this day will rouse to passion- 
ate terror the whole population of a Moslem town by 

* See De Quincey's Essay on " Modern Superstitions." 



DIVINE COMMISSION. 257 

his prognostics of disaster ; * and the counterpart of 
Hagar's vision, or Elijah's comforting voices in the 
desert, is repeated now in the tales of the Bedouin 
camp and the warnings of the hushed march of the 
caravan. Profoundly susceptible, like all Eastern 
races, of that whole class of influences which bor- 
der on the mysterious and supernatural, the Hebrew 
people offered just the requisite field for the expan- 
sion and development of the prophetic gift. United 
as it was with a peculiar culture, and that intense 
and singular pertinacity of character and habit be- 
longing to the race, it could not fail to become the 
culminating fact of their mental history. 

The peculiar constitution of the state itself was 
based on a conviction that made part of the very 
life of Hebrew thought, — a conviction which must 
powerfully co-operate with the quality just spoken 
of, to give energy and effect to the function of proph- 
ecy. The " people of Jehovah " were instructed to 
ascribe to their Divinity both the direct founding of 
their institutions and every powerful influence that 
affected their destiny. Everything inexplicable and 
unseen must necessarily be referred to him, — the 
more certainly the more nearly it bore upon their 
own fortunes. Even such fatal events as the great 
pestilence of David's reign, the revolt of the tribes, 
and the massacres committed by Jehu, are ascribed 
to his express interposition and forethought > and the 
four hundred prophets who gave Ahab his false hopes 
of victory were really inspired by "a lying spirit" 
from Jehovah, as declared in Micaiah's eloquent story 

* See Layard's " Babylon and Nineveh," p. 632. 

Q 



258 THE PROPHETS. 

of his vision.* Of course, a man powerfully in 
earnest must derive his conviction from the same 
source. A rapt visionary, a poetical declaimer, a 
victorious champion, a skilled artificer, a sagacious 
and confident declarer of the future, a successful 
practiser of healing, or one who should exercise the 
now more familiar yet inexplicable power of finding 
hidden water-springs, or controlling mesmerically the 
bodily condition of others to hurt or heal, would 
even more certainly be regarded as deriving his gift 
from the particular favour of the unseen Sovereign. 
Here, in the popular feeling and belief, was an ally 
by which the class of men known as prophets would 
be most powerfully aided, — all the more because the 
feeling and conviction were their own. The gift of 
bodily temperament or mental genius, of which they 
were conscious, they were expressly taught to regard 
as the commission or favour of Jehovah. A man of 
profound feeling, like Jeremiah, might shrink in 
trembling and tears from the pressure of the awful 
burden ; but it must be borne nevertheless, for the 
commission it implied could never once be doubted, 
— a commission that must crush every scruple, over- 
rule every thought of policy, and still every throb of 
fear. A barbarian chieftain, like Jephthah, or one 
of the incorrigible levity of Samson, might be forti- 
fied by believing in his own divine legation, though 
it should, not save him from the worst superstition or 
the grossest vice ; while to one of resolute purpose, 
like Samuel, or of ardent and confident conviction, 
like Isaiah, the same belief would be the inspiration 

* 1 Kings xxii. 19-23. 



EELATION TO THE STATE. 259 

of the purest moral heroism. However shaded or 
stained, there is not the smallest reason to doubt that 
the belief was real. It made part of the tempera- 
ment of the race and the creed of the religion. It 
was shared alike by prophet and king, by priest 
and people. This consideration is absolutely essen- 
tial, if we would estimate correctly a single one of 
the many perplexing phenomena which the history 
of prophecy presents. Whatever else they were, they 
were not acts of shrewd jugglery or vulgar impos- 
ture ; but, in the main, the acts of very confident 
and earnest men, who were instructed to believe 
thoroughly that what they did or thought was in- 
spired directly by their nation's God. Both in their 
own and the popular belief, they were in the strictest 
sense ambassadors or representatives, to speak before 
the nation messages from the invisible and dread 
majesty of its King. 

A single word is further necessary to state the 
true relation of Prophecy to the political power of 
the realm. It seems to have been clearly recognized 
and deferred to as a co-ordinate power with the mon- 
archy, and as of at least equal authority. The theo- 
cratic constitution of the Hebrews acknowledged one 
full as much as the other. Each was a legitimate 
working force. Each was essential to the existence 
and the true development of the state. If they ever 
came into open collision, which they were too apt to 
do, certainly the divine element was not held more 
guilty of criminal ambition than the human. Nay, 
the Hebrew mind would probably regard it as right- 
fully paramount on the whole, however ill-judged at 



260 THE PROPHETS. 

times we may regard its opposition ; and what would 
be punished as treason or usurpation in a modern 
state offered no violence to that vague and simple 
polity. The high-handed control of Samuel over the 
royalty he had ordained ; the political revolutions 
set on foot by Elisha ; the practical statesmanship of 
Isaiah, who at a moment of extreme peril displaced 
Hezekiah's chief minister of state and inaugurated a 
most hazardous change of policy; the baffling re- 
monstrance of Jeremiah against the last desperate 
defence of the capital, — have all been censured from 
the point of view of modern custom ; * but the power 
that controlled the event in each of these instances 
was unquestionably felt to be a legitimate power in 
the state, however opposed to a " parliamentary re- 
gime," or the rude Erastianism of a democracy. 

Doubtless it was perplexing to lay down rules to 
govern the fluctuating and unstable equilibrium of 
the two powers, spiritual and temporal ; impossible 
often to secure the needful independence of the exec- 
utive in the task of public defence against the sudden 
assault of a divine fury or an irresponsible enthusiasm. 
What form of government is without its own particu- 
lar weak point ? Yet, whatever the risk, it was one 
which the genius of the Hebrew state made inevita- 
ble, one which its lawgivers deliberately assumed. 
The national existence itself might be put at hazard, 
as in Saul's feud with the religious party, by the 
conflicts of policy that set prophet and king at vari- 
ance ; but no limit was suffered to be put to the 
" liberty of prophesying." Jeremiah's proclamations 

* See Newman's " Hebrew Monarchy." 



FALSE PROPHETS. 261 

of disaster might unnerve the city's defenders in the 
very crisis of a siege ; but he pleads the precedent of 
Micah, and cannot be forbidden. Shebna might pro- 
test in behalf of a prudent policy, but Isaiah's elo- 
quent and indignant boldness gets the victory. At 
most, some uncertain test was offered to distinguish 
true from false ; but, provided the profession of loyal- 
ty to Jehovah was unequivocal, nothing but tyran- 
nical violence and usurpation could bridle the enthu- 
siast, or even silence the impostor. The Hebrew 
constitutional law abode courageously by the maxims 
of a primitive devoutness, and the express edict of 
the state * sanctioned that reverence towards the man 
of God which made part of the popular religion. 

Among the multitude whether of graduates from 
the prophetic seminary or of solitary and self-taught 
men, the qualities of wisdom, devotion, and even 
mental honesty, were far from universal. In the 
Scripture record, "false prophets" appear nearly as 
often as the true ; and some of the most striking 
scenes of the prophetic history are those of conflict 
waged against them. The distinction is in many 
cases quite independent of false worships and alien 
superstitions. It is drawn among those who claim, 
with equal apparent sincerity, the sanction and inspi- 
ration of Jehovah. f Nay, so far is it from always 
implying a false pretension, that of Zedekiah and his 
four hundred (just referred to) it is expressly said 
that " Jehovah put a lying spirit in their mouth." 
The distinction is not only very embarrassing to the 
critic now, but it was at least equally so to the law- 

* Deuteronomy xviii. 18, 19. t Ibid, xviii. 22. 



262 THE PROPHETS. 

makers of the Hebrews themselves. Infinitely dis- 
tressing in its perplexity, in the religious terrors and 
counter-terrors that grew from it, it must have been 
to the people, — perhaps in apprehension of some dis- 
aster, perhaps under the scourge of some affliction. 
It is probably to be fully comprehended only by a 
better understanding than we possess of the condi- 
tions of religious progress among the Hebrews, and 
the steps by which a new order of ideas crowded out 
the old. The state of Israel, doubtless, offers no ex- 
ception to the " natural history of enthusiasm," or 
the laws of growth observed in heresies. What we 
read of as false prophets then would be reckoned 
now as factious sectaries, or dissenters from the 
stricter creed, — if our modern standard could meas- 
ure the dim proportions of such ancient heresy. 
Emphatic and repeated warnings are given to " be- 
ware of false prophets ; " but at a time when the 
rancour of recent revolution made a test of falsity 
especially desirable, the law is fluctuating and uncer- 
tain. At one time, prophecy takes the sense of pre- 
diction, and is to be proved by the event. At 
another, neither miracle nor true prediction is a 
sufficient test, but only fidelity to the law already 
established, and to the exclusive worship of Jeho- 
vah.* In the later period of the monarchy the col- 
lision of the true and false became very frequent, as 
testified by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, — a natural conse- 
quence of revolutions within the state, and of an ir- 
regular progress of religious thought stimulated from 
abroad. But so few are our monuments and so 

* See Deuteronomy xviii. 22 ; xiii. 2, 3. 



WAY OF LIFE AND INFLUENCE. 263 

imperfect our knowledge of the time, that we cannot 
draw the line of heresy with much more certainty 
than has now been done. We can only add, that the 
true faith of Israel may be assumed as that which 
history has preserved and ratified ; and that those 
prophets whose acts and words have survived to us, 
have at least their nation's verdict that they are its 
authentic spokesmen. 

Neither can the entire amount and drift of their 
influence upon their countrymen be determined with 
much greater confidence than has already been im- 
plied in the description of their office. Some have 
compared them to the mendicant or preaching friars 
of the Roman Church, as messengers and agents of 
the hierarchy among the people. Some have imag- 
ined them as forming a sort of " opposition clubs " 
in the Hebrew state. Such conjectures, though they 
may do a little to pique the imagination, are quite 
as likely to lead it astray from the fact. The clear- 
est picture we have of the prophets' way of life 
is found in the remarkable episode in the history 
of the Kings which details the acts of Elijah and 
Elisha. Here they appear as the instructors and 
familiar companions of the people. They dwell 
either in strange solitudes, like the first, or, like 
Elisha, in industrial communities, fathers of the 
monastic life. From these retreats they go forth, 
or send out their trusty messengers, to the special 
service which the time demands. They are bold to 
rebuke tyranny, stanch champions of the faith of 
Israel, tender in their sympathy with a people under 
oppression, stern and unflinching when the time comes 



264 THE PROPHETS. 

to avenge upon a guilty dynasty the arrears of accu- 
mulated wrong. They are skilful in the treatment 
of maladies with simple remedies, whether by human 
or superhuman means ; practised observers both of 
natural phenomena and political events ; adepts, ap- 
parently, in the rude handicraft and simple science 
of the day. Knowledge and skill beyond the ordi- 
nary reach of men are ascribed to supernatural aid, 
and recounted in tales of wonder. To predict a 
change of sky and to foil a hostile policy are among 
the examples related of prophetic skill. The notion 
of Divine agency conveyed in the narration is often 
untempered and harsh. The prophet becomes a 
messenger of God's vengeance as well as of his 
mercy. The healing of a leper or the blasting of 
a company of men by Divine fire, the restoring of 
a dead child to its mother or the tearing of more 
than forty by bears out of a wood when Elisha 
" turned and cursed them" for their childish mock- 
ery, are told with equal unconcern, as parts of the 
same marvellous tale, superseding all human judg- 
ment of equity or cruelty. But of far more value 
than any such narratives as these is the picture which 
is suggested of the prophet's way of life in that early 
time, — the real tenderness and confidence of his 
intercourse with the people, — the mingling of his 
personal agency in the great events of war or state 
policy which were acting out around him. It is a 
picture of one portion of the old Hebrew life, with- 
out which our knowledge of that people would be 
quite otherwise incomplete than it is. And it leaves 
us little to ask, except those questions, forever vain, 



LANGUAGE OF SYMBOLS. , 265 

touching the exact degree of religious development 
then reached, and the real nature of the controver- 
sies which we discern so dimly among the obscure 
movements of the earlier Hebrew thought. 

From the manner of instruction employed, we may 
infer the untaught simplicity of the minds the proph- 
ets addressed, as well as something of their own 
style of genius. The language of symbols — some- 
times ingenious and suggestive, sometimes grotesque 
and quaint — is the favourite language of popular 
address. The touching simplicity of Nathan's par- 
able of the ewe-lamb is an example standing nearly 
by itself, wherein the imagery is more delicate and 
pure, and the peculiar style of Hebrew religious teach- 
ing is shown in its most pleasing form. The pro- 
phetic imagery, or symbolic language, detailed in act 
or speech, is generally of a ruder and coarser sort. 
Zedekiah binds iron horns to his forehead and butts 
with them to signify that Ahab shall push victoriously 
against the Syrians. Hosea takes for his wife a wo- 
man of notorious ill life, to illustrate the infidelity of 
Israel in its nuptial relation to Jehovah. Isaiah 
walks openly for three years " naked and barefoot," 
or in the squalid garb of a captive, to picture the 
coming servitude of the Egyptians. A characteristic 
part of Jeremiah's ministry consists in a variety of 
symbolic acts which might easily seem trivial in the 
telling, though doubtless effective and serious enough 
in the acting ; and in his predicting of subjugation 
he loads his shoulders with a yoke, which the bolder 
Hananiah breaks, to reverse the omen, or emblematic 
sense. 

12 



266 THE PROPHETS. 

Prom pictorial or symbolic acts the prophetic style 
easily ascended into language of the same character- 
istic quality. The vast and vague magnificence of 
the Hebrew imagery is the most marked feature in 
that literature and the familiar representative to us 
of the national genius ; by the consent of critics, it 
has become our conventional standard of the sublime. 
Nothing in the writings of any age, excepting what 
has been directly inspired from that source, surpasses 
the grandeur of the images in which the Hebrew 
prophets discourse of the state and sovereignty of Je- 
hovah, or menace the doom of a profligate tyranny. 
The stern and obscure brevity of their style, con- 
densing the images of a pictorial fancy, has given 
the writers of this people a hold upon the imagina- 
tion of later ages such that they must always be the 
grand examples of this one element in the litera- 
ture of the world. Nothing, indeed, gives us so 
high a notion of the general quality of the Hebrew 
mind, as the fact that these nobler passages of lan- 
guage, whether prophetic ode or vision or religious 
appeal, were portions of real and living address, — 
employed to move the popular conscience to a 
definite end, or to shape the actual policy. of the 
state. 

Enough has appeared, from time to time, in the 
course of the foregoing narrative, to enable us easily 
to generalize the history of the prophetical office, by 
casting it into three well-marked periods. The first 
is the period of unwritten prophecy, lasting down to 
the age of Elisha, and its general features have 
already been sufficiently described. The third, or 



WRITTEN PROPHECY. 267 

latest period, including such compositions as ap- 
peared during the Captivity, or later, belongs to an- 
other place. There remains the second, or the earlier 
period of written prophecy, commencing about the 
middle of the ninth century before Christ, and termi- 
nating with the fall of Jerusalem. This period begins 
with Joel and ends with Jeremiah, covering a space 
of about two hundred and fifty years. 

It was during this time, or the latter half of the 
monarchy, that these chief monuments of the Hebrew 
mind were wrought ; and probably, along with them, 
a large proportion of the remaining Scripture was 
either for the first time written, or at least cast in its 
present shape. So that this is the most prolific and 
active period of the national genius, and that which 
most fully exhibits to us the intellectual character of 
that people. The changing fortunes of the state 
would stimulate all men to whatever mental activity 
they were capable of, while perpetual encounter with 
other nations would bring out in strong relief the 
peculiar qualities of thought that characterize the 
race. Thus another ground of interest is suggested 
in this discussion ; since the period under review will 
give us a point of departure by which we may meas- 
ure the mental advance made afterwards, under a 
different set of influences. 

Those occasions in the history which brought for- 
ward, one after another, the series of the prophets, 
have been already briefly noticed, and need not be 
repeated here. The questions remaining to be con- 
sidered are, what is the style of religious thought to 
be discerned in them ; and especially what is their 



268 THE PROPHETS. 

true interpretation with respect to the religious life, 
hopes, and progress of humanity ? * 

The first obvious thing that occurs to us, as we 
glance along the line of honoured names, is that the 
series culminates near midway, in the glorious hopes 
and visions, the firm attitude of religious confidence, 
the exultation arising from an unlooked-for deliver- 
ance, and the generous and wise temper of an en- 
larged charity, associated with the name and public 
ministry of Isaiah. The eldest of the company are 
harsh and brief, bitter in their denouncing, vindic- 

* The following brief outline, or recapitulation, is condensed from 
Ewald, "Die Propheten des Alten Bundes." The dates are only 
approximate : — 

B. C. 830. Joel, in the reign of Amaziah, bewails a plague of 
locusts, and censures the neglect of sacrifice. Atonement being made, 
he predicts the divine favour to Judah, conquest and slavery to Edom, 
Tyre, and Egypt. 

• B. C. 800. Amos, a missionary in the northern kingdom, details the 
splendour and prosperity of the reign of Jeroboam II., together with its 
oppression, riots, licentiousness, and idolatry. The Assyrian power 
threatened. 

B. C. 770. Hosea, the last prophet of the northern kingdom, speaks 
of the idolatry, etc. at the close of Jeroboam's reign, and the convul- 
sions succeeding ; factions, seeking foreign aid. He suffers persecution 
and exile. 

B. C. 750-700. Isaiah : his visions and consecration (ch. vi.) ; early 
Assyrian conquests (ii. 2-v. 25 ; ix. 8-x. 4; v. 26-30) ; their further 
advance (xvii. 1-11); invasion by Pekah and Rezin (vii. 1-ix. 7); 
warning to Philistines (xiv. 28-32); to Moab (ch. xv., xvi.) ; to Du- 
mah and Arabian tribes (xxi. 11-17); to Damascus (ch. xxiii.) ; 
imminent invasion of Assyrians (i. 2-31, — the remonstrance was 
effectual, in Hezekiah's reforms); base treaty with them; charges 
against Shebna (xxii. 1-25); proposed Egyptian alliance (ch. xxviii. 
-xxxii. and xx.) ; promised deliverance from Assyria (x. 5-xii. 6); 
message to Ethiopians (xvii. 12-xviii. 7; xiv. 24-27); defiance of 
Sennacherib (ch. xxxiii. ; xxxviii. 22-35); national judgments, result- 
ing in restoration of the true faith; alliance and harmony of Egypt, 
Assyria, and Judah (ch. xix.). 



PKOPHETIC WRITINGS. 269 

tive in their threatening. The later have more of 
despondency than hope, express rather complaint 
than confidence : so that we feel, for Jeremiah espe- 
cially, rather sympathy in the sorrow of his burden 
than gladness and honour for his bearing of it. We 
cannot nicely discriminate the temper of the different 
stages, where all is at once so strongly national and 
so intensely personal. Yet, with the culminating of 
this period of the nation's life in the reign of Heze- 
kiah, we feel that the richest harvest of Hebrew 
thought is gathered ; that what went before was of 

B. C. 750. Unknown (Zech. ix. 1 -xi. 17 ; xiii. 7-9), parallel with 
Isaiah, ch. ix., but referring to the northern kingdom. 

B. C. 720. Micah : parallel with Isaiah ch. x. -xii., etc. (see p. 191) ; 
false prophets and unfaithful statesmen ; decay of faith ; destruction of 
city and temple apprehended. 

B. C. 650. Nahtjm, an exile in Assyria : threatened destruction of 
Nineveh and Thebes by Medes. 

B. C. 630. Zephaniah : terror at inroad of Scythians ; deliverance 
can come only after judgment. 

B. C. 600. Habakkuk : invasion of Scythians and Chaldees, after 
Josiah; no allusion to old offences, but the new lesson of trust in 
hopeless calamity. 

B. C. 588. Unknown (Zech. xii. 1 — xiii. 6; ch. xiv., written just 
before the destruction of Jerusalem) : a dweller in the country; he 
confides in the deliverance of the city, while Jeremiah desponds. 

B. C. 585. Obadiah (after the fall of Jerusalem) : the malignant 
vengeance of Edom, to be revenged by Arab marauders. 

B. C. 620-580. Jeremiah: personal incidents, appeals, predic- 
tions, etc., giving a full picture of the siege and fall of Jerusalem ; 
struggles with persecutions ; confuting of delusive predictions of tri- 
umph. 

B. C. 590-570. Ezekiel (one of the earlier exiles; "rather a 
writer than a prophet") : visions of the restored Theocracy. 

Unknown (Isaiah, ch. xl.-lxvi. the great prophet of the captiv- 
ity, living probably in Egypt ; by Bunsen considered to be Baruch, the 
scribe of Jeremiah) : general and exalted predictions of restoration, the 
higher destiny of Israel, and the Messiah. 



270 THE PROrHETS. 

crude unripeness, that what is later will be the more 
spare and solitary gleaning. The declining light is 
often more gentle and soft, but it has not the fresh 
glory of the day. 

In estimating these works as literary compositions, 
we have to remember that they are only relics and 
specimens of what was probably a large mass of 
similar address, written or unwritten. It was not 
till the later period that prophecy became a literature 
by main intention. Such compositions as those of 
Ezekiel, or the magnificent chapters appended to the 
book of Isaiah, may have been the production of 
more cultivated minds, wrought out in solitary study. 
But the earlier prophets spoke or acted as the occa- 
sion moved, and to an instant practical end, of warn- 
ing, rebuke, or cheer. The writing down of their 
message was an afterthought, and was left till the 
imminency of the occasion had passed by. Indeed, 
by the peculiar genius of the Hebrew tongue much 
is wrought up in the impassioned style of prediction 
or appeal, which a more cultured dialect would have 
discriminated in the colder tone of history, — being 
written or recast years perhaps after it was deliv- 
ered, and when the contingency foretold was already 
past.* It was in the retreat from persecution, or in 
the loneliness of exile, that Amos and Hosea com- 
posed their elaborate pictures of the declining state 
of Israel, embodying the symbols and appeals they 
had employed in their active ministry ; and Isaiah's 
noble ode of defiance was unquestionably written 
down after the tumult and terror of the invasion had 

* See Isaiah xxx. 8 ; Jeremiah xxxvi. 2. 



PROPHETIC WEITINGS. 271 

passed away. So that the writing is in some regards 
an uncertain reflection of the speech, while the speech 
suggests the type and affords the criterion by which 
to judge the more elaborate writing. Much of the 
abrupt and lively manner is retained ; the symbolic 
acts are detailed in all their freshness ; while, in the 
fashion of the popular speaker, fragments of address 
are interspersed, suggested by the occasion, op direct- 
ed to a particular class of hearers.* Not only the 
fitness of the language or order of ideas must be 
measured by the needs of the occasion, but the 
thought itself is often disguised in a symbol of doubt- 
ful interpretation. It is only with considerable free- 
dom of criticism, and with the allowance of a wide 
margin of uncertainty, that we can trace at all the 
course of positive opinion hinted in the prophets ; 
still less can we ascertain the real condition of the 
popular belief. Besides the general character of the 
Hebrew literature and institutions, already described, 
a few more striking passages of imagery, or veins of 
religious thought, are all we have to mark the ad- 
vance of mind in that age, and ascertain its amount 
of preparation for a later and higher culture. 

In our estimate of the mind of this period, we 
must take into account, furthermore, such composi- 
tions as the Book of Job and many of the Psalms ; 
which not only, as seems likely, belong here in point 
of time, but are genuine prophetical writings as much 
as any, if we adopt the only consistent interpretation 
of this phrase. Aided by these, our estimate of the 

* As, for example, to women. See Amos iv. 1-3; Isaiah iii. 10 - 
iv. 1, xxxii. 9-12. 



272 THE PROPHETS. 

truth and spirituality of religious ideas among the 
Hebrews will be very greatly enhanced. We may 
except to many a special image or point of view ; but 
religious writings that have survived so many revolu- 
tions of human thought, and still hold their place in 
the general reverence and affection, must in some 
essential regards be alike beyond our censure or our 
praise. * 

The religious significance of such writings lies 
not so much in clearness of outline or distinctness 
of intellectual view as in the tone and elevation of 
thought. It would be idle to go to them for instruc- 
tion on particular points of faith, save as instruction 
may be hinted in their often spontaneous and fervid 
utterance of a spiritual fact. To construct a theologi- 
cal scheme, even to require consistency of religious 
opinion, could not possibly have entered into the 
mind of that day. The faith which the prophets 
demanded was a moral quality. It was loyalty to 
Israel's God ; fidelity in the line of service which the 
conscience of that time could apprehend. The spir- 
itual attributes of the Almighty were never presented 
with any consistency or clearness ; neither the pre- 
cise relation in which outward acts of faith stood to 
the Divine ordinance and will. Sovereign power, 
bare and absolute, made the basis of the popular 
conception of Jehovah's rule, modified only by such 
special favours as he bestowed on his chosen people. 
" I form the light and create darkness, I make peace 
and create evil," is the language the prophets ascribe 
to him ; and the sublime passages of the Book of Job 
crush the mind under the awful sense of his irresisti- 



RELATION TO PRIESTHOOD. 273 

ble and unquestioned sovereignty, before its calmer 
lesson is given, of trust in his equal recompense. 

Again, the prophets, as moved by an intenser and 
clearer moral sense, stood often in the attitude of 
protestants and reformers, as regarded the priesthood 
or the ritual ; but not always, or in any such sense 
as to represent an opposition party, or even to indicate 
any decided advance in that direction. Their lan- 
guage or their attitude was determined partly by the 
temper of the time they had to meet, partly by the 
conduct of the priesthood and the overgrowth or de- 
cay of ritual observances. Instead of heaping weight 
in a single scale, they seem rather to have laboured 
to keep that degree of equilibrium of form and spirit 
which to the Hebrew conscience would best represent 
the normal condition of things. The extravagances of 
religious independence were no more to be admitted 
than the deadening oppression of a corrupt formalism. 
Joel — of a priest's family, and perhaps a priest him- 
self — calls for a sacrificial atonement to avert the 
visiting scourge ; while, with Amos, God will accept 
no sacrifice, but demands that " judgment run down 
as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." 
Isaiah and Micah, in the golden age of prophecy, vin- 
dicate the moral as far above the ritual meaning of 
the code, and Jeremiah denies that sacrifices were 
ever the Divine command ; * while Ezekiel, at a later 
day, exhibits the most elaborate and painful formal- 
ism of all, along with the severest invective against 
past abuses. If there is such a thing as unity of pur- 
pose among the whole number of the prophets, it is 

* Isaiah, ch. i. ; Micah vi. 8 ; Jeremiah vii. 22. 
12* R 



274 THE PROPHETS. * 

at any rate concealed under that diversity of circum- 
stance which gave shape and colour to their appeal. 

As to the invisible world, the prophetic visions 
only reproduce the familiar images of regal state, 
enhanced by the splendours of such symbolism as we 
find wrought out in the imposing works of Egypt 
and Assyria,* where winged figures are emblematic 
of God's swift decree, and the human countenance 
of the seraph denotes that wisdom which men but 
faintly apprehend. The hierarchy of the heavenly 
hosts, with the characteristic names of the archan- 
gels, belong to the fancies of a mythology not yet 
learned. An angel, in the earlier Hebrew belief, 
was but an envoy of Jehovah, sent on some special 
errand ; the " thrones, dominions, and powers of 
heavenly places," so vividly presented in the poetic 
imagery of a later age, made part of that more gor- 
geous and positive creed adopted during the long 
sojourn in the East. 

The shadowy realm of the Departed, the abode of 
gloom and dreariness, which is the only relief to the 
blank oblivion that follows death, is of a piece with 
the untaught and fanciful mythology which prevailed 
among every ancient people, till its dark shade was 
illumined by the 'dawning light of immortality. Job 
hints, with pathetic patience, his trust in a living 
Redeemer, who shall vindicate him from the heavy 
reproach of guilt, and so take away the sting of his 
calamity ; but the clear and positive anticipation of a 
life to come made no part of the Hebrew faith. At 
best, its dismal imagery could make the apparition 

* See especially Isaiah, ch. vi. ; Ezekiel, ch. i. ; Hab., ch. iii. 



STYLE OF OPINION. 275 

of Samuel a real terror to the conscience of the 
shuddering king, or give force and vividness to the 
gloomy sublimity of Isaiah's image of the powers of 
the under-world moved to meet the oppressor at his 
coming, or startle us with the story of a dead man 
restored to life at the touch of the sacred relics of a 
prophet. The apprehension of a future state was 
distinct enough to haunt the imagination and clothe 
itself in forms of a religious fancy, but not to sug- 
gest any profound lessons of retribution, or minister 
comfort in anguish, or furnish the key to a ritual 
symbolism, or vindicate the mystery of a half-hidden 
Providence. It required the teaching of another 
order of events, and the contact of another system 
of belief, to develop in the Hebrew mind the latent 
faith in the Unseen, and so complete the circle of its 
religious thought. 

As an intellectual system, nothing could be more 
simple and undefined than the theology assumed by 
the Hebrew prophets, beyond the few points that 
have now been named. As such, they did not much 
to develop or extend it. Their real office was in 
part as its preservers, bringing the mind of the 
people continually back upon the faith and loyalty 
which were from of old their noblest attribute ; and 
in part as its reformers, testifying in the name of 
Jehovah against many forms of abuse, and by the 
very honesty of their purpose insensibly enhancing 
their own and the popular sense of right. When 
their task was done, and the career of their nation 
closed, the animosity or narrowness due to the pres- 
sure of their time would gradually subside ; so that 



276 THE PROPHETS. 

their true legacy to after ages would be the residue 
of higher thought, and single-hearted zeal which it 
was their mission to associate forever with the name 
and worship of Jehovah. 

Barred by the narrowness of their creed from the 
vast and illimitable spaces of a heavenly Future, and 
alike from the vision of a reign of humanity upon 
earth, their faith in the providence of God, as manifest 
in Israel, concentrated itself in a boundless and be- 
nignant hope for their own chosen people. Early in 
the prophetic history, and especially when the gloom 
of the present prospect required the strong contrast of 
a positive glory in the future, we find the dawn of the 
" Messianic prophecy."* There seems almost a wilful 
positiveness and grandeur in the confident assertions 
of triumph made so often under the very pressure of 
impending ruin. That it was a real and sustaining 
faith, that, in spite of a thousand defeats and cen- 
turies of disappointment, it remains so to this day, is 
the singular glory of the Hebrew race, — like one ray 
of Divine light resting upon it through the dark and 
dreadful humiliation it has sustained. If its original 
meaning were never to be verified, yet the hidden and 
unintended meaning, which gave an unflagging cour- 
age, which revived the perishing germ of nationality, 
which nourished a sacred zeal by lingering and pre- 
cious memories, and prepared the world's welcome 
for the " Father of an everlasting age and Prince of 
Peace," was a divine prophecy of truth given and 
heard unawares. The words it was spoken in may 
seem to us the natural utterance of the occasion, 

* See Joel ii. 28, iii. 17 ; Isaiah vii. 14, ix. 1-7, ch. xi. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 277 

working on the profound and passionate conviction 
of a Hebrew mind ; but their sense to the imagina- 
tion and heart will always be what the genius of tri- 
umphant melody has made it,* — the homage of 
Humanity to its Spiritual Sovereign, the inspired 
longing and promise of a Divine Redeemer. 

The more definite forms of Messianic prophecy, 
the beautiful lyrical amplifications of the earlier hope 
(found especially in the closing chapters of Isaiah), 
belong to the subsequent age. They bear the spirit- 
ual quality, and expand in the purity of anticipa- 
tion, triumphant or tender, which were wrought out 
in a period of larger culture and less violent vicissi- 
tude. The declarations of the elder prophets are 
brief, occasional, and vague. They abound not so 
much in clearness of statement, making them distinct 
to the reason, as in clusters of imagery, making them 
vivid to the imagination. Their garb is not that of 
definite prediction, but of vague anticipation and 
poetic rhapsody. 

And, still further to denote their character, they oc- 
cur miscellaneously among the appeals to conscience 
or the declaiming on political events, without any 
hint that they are of broader scope than that connec- 
tion would seem to indicate.! They come in inci- 
dentally, to round out the circle of the prophet's 
familiar thought, rather than dwell minutely or fond- 
ly on the visions of a remote future. In short, like 
other modes of prophetic doctrine or appeal, they 
take the precise form and pressure of the time. 

* In the "Wonderful Chorus" of Handel's Messiah. 
t See Isaiah, chaps, vii. - ix. 



278 THE PROPHETS. 

They are held out as encouragement in particular 
emergencies, or as assurance against particular dis- 
asters. They are a vindication of the permanency 
of the Hebrew faith, and the faithfulness of Jehovah, 
who will not suffer his people to perish. They seize 
some passing event, or domestic incident, or symbolic 
personal name, as a " sign," omen, or hint to the 
imagination, that the national hope is not doomed 
to fail. Its triumph is generally heralded, as if it 
should come with the vanishing of the immediate 
danger ; * and it is not till those of clearest foresight 
despaired of the city's defence against the king of 
Babylon that its fulfilment is deferred for a period 
of seventy years, — till the land should have expiated 
the guilt of its five centuries' neglect of its seasons 
of religious rest.f 

Such is the general character of what are known 
as the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, — 
including in that phrase not only such as hint at a 
coming Sovereign and everlasting reign of peace, but 
all which foretell the nation's deliverance and tri- 
umph amidst impending danger. That these predic- 
tions should gradually shape themselves towards the 
announcement of a restored monarchy, in renovated 
and purer form, after the fondly imagined type of 
David's reign, was inevitable under the conditions 
of Hebrew thought. That they should include the 

* See Isaiah x. 24 - 27, in connection with chap. xi. 

t 2 Chronicles xxxvi. 21. The real duration of the Captivity was 
about fifty years ; and the disappointment of the prophetic hope (which 
looked successively to Cyrus and Zerubbabel) seems to have suggested 
the interpretation of "seventy weeks," or five centuries. See Isaiah 
xlv. 1 ; Haggai ii. 23 ; Daniel ix. 24. 



MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 279 

firm and universal dominion of the national insti- 
tutions,* was part of the prophet's loyalty to the 
only form he could imagine of the true religion, 
and was required by the homage he paid his nation's 
God. It is needless to repeat the imagery, some- 
times splendid, sometimes tender, in which the in- 
domitable hope was variously portrayed. It is not 
the particular form of declaration, but the mental 
quality so perpetually active and so characteristic 
of the race, that gives its chief value to this portion of 
the Hebrew literature, together with the answering 
quality in the popular mind, which so fondly echoed 
the words, and cherished the hope, and expanded 
into large proportion each detail of the imagery, and 
so, out of what had grown to be a gorgeous dream, 
created the magnificent type of mankind's concep- 
tion of its Redeemer. 

This one element, refined and almost purely spirit- 
ual, has survived to us, out of the vast influence 
wielded upon their own generation by " the goodly 
fellowship of the Prophets." How mingled and 
various was that influence, how tempered by passion, 
delusion, and narrowness of view among some who 
bore the name, how affected by superstition, obsti- 
nacy, craft, hate, or fear, among those who, with a 
vague awe, received it, how misinterpreted by the 
fiery zeal or ignorant prejudice of after times, has 
been sufficiently shown. A single word suffices to re- 
store us to the right point of view, which regards the 
history as a whole, and seeks its significance for the 
later evolution of human thought. The divine or 

* Isaiah ii. 2; Micah iv. 1. 



280 THE PROPHETS. 

providential aspect of that history is reflected pre- 
cisely here, — in the highest reach of thought and 
purest moral aspiration attained by the foremost 
men of the race. While so much of the nation's 
life is utterly forgotten, or grown unintelligible and 
obsolete, — while most of its records have perished, 
and its very name is but dimly and apologetically 
inscribed in the registers of the ancient world, — 
while the race that bore it, after centuries of igno- 
minious persecution at the hands of generations 
that disowned their great debt, is even now strug- 
gling for some equal recognition of its religious and 
civil right, — these bravest and loftiest words, spoken 
by its true representative men, make even now a 
spell to stir men's thought, and a living power in the 
permanent literature of the world. For, through 
their often meagre brevity and dense obscurity and 
wearisome perplexity, still shines the light which 
guided the desert-march of Israel ; still sounds that 
" voice crying in the wilderness," which from distant 
ages yet heralds to our heart the latest and purest 
hope of Humanity. 



IX. THE CAPTIVITY. 

THE two and a half centuries succeeding the fall 
of Jerusalem cover the entire brilliant period 
of Grecian history, from Solon to Alexander. They 
begin just before those first conquests of Persian 
power that threatened an Oriental despotism to domi- 
neer over the destinies of Europe : their close finds 
the little Jewish state, after twenty years of buffeting 
in the game of ambition between Syria and Egypt, 
annexed as an appendage to the empire of Ptolemy, 
the Macedonian master of the South. 

To the fortunes of Israel this period was a critical 
one, though not eventful. The political unity of the 
nation was utterly broken. There remained only its 
sacred memories, its ritual, and its religious polity. 
The royal theocracy of Solomon and Hezekiah be- 
comes a regency of priests. The brief annals of the 
time, almost blank of historical recital, present us 
only the broken, yet zealous efforts to restore the 
perished state, the petty feuds of a covenanting sect, 
and the gradual strengthening of the priestly power. 
It is the era of Jewish Puritanism. It begins in the 
longing and sorrow of exile ; it continues with the 
sad and slender fortunes of a pilgrim colony. It 
begins with the blazing out of the brightest flame 



282 THE CAPTIVITY. 

of Prophecy ; it ends with its pale and expiring light. 
The ancient ritual is adopted under new pledges as 
the basis of a narrower zeal and a more exclusive pol- 
ity. The form of old faith is guarded more jealously 
than ever, while its creative spirit becomes extinct : 
and the canon of Hebrew Scripture is closed — lik % e a 
casket that should keep untouched the treasure held 
in trust for another age — just as the Grecian mind 
and arms become dominant in the East. 

When Jerusalem was taken, the national life and 
hope of Israel had all but utterly perished. Of the 
inhabitants of Judah, some clung as they could about 
the wasted fields and dismantled towns ; some lived 
miserably, by sufferance of the hostile garrison, among 
the highlands near Jerusalem ; some were scattered 
through Arabia, or among the colonies and islands of 
the west, as far probably as Carthage or even Spain ; 
and some, more fortunate, found friendly shelter in 
Egypt, where germs of a more ideal faith, and trust 
in a destiny yet in store for Israel, began presently to 
grow afresh. The bulk of the population — of whom 
Jeremiah reckons up only forty-six hundred;* in all, 
perhaps, about as many thousand — were taken to fill 
the void spaces of a capital so vast, that, when half 
of it was afterwards in the hands of an enemy, the 
rumour of attack was in some districts still unheard. 

It was the humane policy of the great Eastern 
monarchies,! not to treat their captives as slaves or 
sell them into foreign bondage, but to make them 
useful colonists, — if possible, contented subjects. 

* Chap. lii. 28 - 30. 

t See Grote's History of Greece, Chap. XLII. 



GRIEFS OF EXILE. 283 

The Jews along the Euphrates were thus left with 
no small amount of personal liberty. They had their 
own local rulers, their religious chiefs, and the free 
practice of their forms of faith. They embarked in 
various forms of enterprise and trade. They had 
property in houses, lands, and slaves.* Numbers 
of them at a later day attained considerable local 
importance ; some even, as Daniel and Mordecai, 
came to the highest dignities at court. The inevit- 
able hardship of exile was made keener, doubtless, 
at first, by the insolent and dissolute idolatry of the 
great capital of heathendom, and by something like 
religious persecution when the heart was too full of 
a loyal grief to furnish mirth for a pagan revel. 
" I have given Jacob to the curse and Israel to re- 
proaches," Jehovah is made to say ; " they that rule 
over them make them to howl, and my name is con- 
tinually blasphemed." " The visage of my people is 
blacker than a coal ; they are not known in the 
streets ; the slain with the sword are better than 
those that perish with hunger, for these pine away, 
stricken through for want of the fruits of the land." 
And hanging their harps upon the willows, by the 
rivers of Babylon, the captives a wept when they re- 
membered Zion." f But even in this regard there 
came to be freedom, at least indulgence. Ezekiel 
could tell his visions unmolested among " the cap- 
tives by the river of Chebar ; " messages of counsel 
or rebuke were sent from Egypt or Palestine, by the 
aged Jeremiah, to his fellow-exiles across the Syrian 

* See the accounts respecting Mordecai, Tobit, etc. 

t See Isaiah xliii. 28, lii. 5 ; Lamentations iv. 8, 9 ; Psalm exxxvii. 



284 THE CAPTIVITY. 

desert ; and the " great unnamed " Prophet of the 
Captivity could cheer them at a distance with his 
glowing promises of a divine Champion, and a com- 
ing spiritual reign of Israel. Thus the national 
hope had not perished. The destiny of the race was 
not wholly accomplished. The divine instinct which 
looks to the future was not lost. The "remnant" 
which elder prophecy * said should return, and build 
up again from the desolation it foresaw, was ready 
to answer, unembarrassed, the first summons to the 
holy land. 

In the mean time, relations peaceable and friendly 
grew up between the exiles and the conquerors. 
Chaldasan forms of speech invaded the purity of the 
old Hebrew tongue, and Chaldaean names were 
adopted in Hebrew homes. Local attachments were 
formed as older memories faded out. The half-cen- 
tury of forced banishment brought many to adopt a 
foreign land from choice. The purest Hebrew blood 
was naturalized in Babylon. The pining exiles be- 
came first contented subjects, then prosperous and 
willing colonists. Their characteristic thrift did not 
desert them ; and no pious scruple deterred them 
from a profitable tenure on the plain of Shinar. 
" This captivity is long," Jeremiah had forewarned 
them, " build ye houses and dwell in them ; plant 
gardens and eat the fruit of them." With the ma- 
jority the new tie was stronger than the old. The 
Babylonian Jews continued a flourishing community 
long after the later state of Judah was crushed by .the 
merciless revenge of Rome. Their long existence as 

* Isaiah x. 20, etc. 



BABYLON THE GREAT. 285 

a distinct body, their independent schools of learning, 
their wealth and consequence, as shown in the style of 
their tradition, and the repute had of them in Oriental 
story, all attest the tenacious hold which the trans- 
planted stock had laid upon the soil* 

It was with jealous alarm that the more pious and 
patriotic saw the course of this denationalizing. The 
most vehement expostulations of Jeremiah are direct- 
ed against the threatening apostasy. " My people, go 
ye out of the midst of her," he exclaims, after de- 
nouncing woe and ruin against the city, " and deliver 
ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of Jeho- 
vah. Go away ; stand not still ; remember Jehovah 
afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind ! " 
The pride and splendour of Babylon became a symbol 
of everything that is hostile and hateful to Jehovah, 
— an evil eminence which "that great city" holds 
in the visions of the Apocalypse, and in the polemic 
metaphors of this very day. 

The greater jealousy and dread were felt, because 
here was the centre of Oriental civilization, with its 
intellectual pride, its insolent and cruel despotism, its 
gorgeous idol-worship, its effeminate and infamous 
luxury. The conquest of Jerusalem had taken place 
in the middle of the long reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 
the most famous and splendid of the Chaldaean mon- 
archs. His ambition was to adorn and fortify, by the 
most lavish outlay, his enormous capital : in curious 
testimony of it, every brick of its ruin bears the 

* For the titles and dignity of the Son of David, " Prince of the 
Captivity n in Bagdad, in the twelfth century, see the Travels of R. 
Benjamin of Tudela. (Bonn's " Early Travels in Palestine") 



286 THE CAPTIVITY. 

stamp of his name.* One wonted to the compact 
and picturesque scenery of Judah, with its irregular, 
close-built towns, and the pastoral landscape, home 
of pious and venerable story, would be not so much 
astonished as lost and appalled among the vast splen- 
dours of " Babylon the great," — a city connected by 
tradition with the lewd violence of primeval giants, 
and Nimrod's bold impiety, and the rebellious blas- 
phemy of Babel. 

A district fifteen miles square, rich with gardens, 
orchards, palaces, and the low, scattered dwellings of 
an Asiatic population, was enclosed in a prodigious 
wall of sixty miles in circuit and three hundred feet 
high. Such was the scale of grandeur of this proud 
Oriental capital. The great " gates of brass and bars 
of iron" that defied an enemy's approach ; the gor- 
geous temple of the Sun, a furlong high ; the terraced 
or "hanging" gardens of more than three acres, — 
orchard and forest being lifted on stupendous arches 
to the height of the city-wall itself, to please the 
homesick fancy of a highland queen ; the system of 
drainage, such that it was said the whole water of 
the Euphrates could be drawn off into an artificial 
lake, and fatally exposing the city to the night-strata- 
gem of Cyrus ; the fortifications of corresponding 
magnitude that defended a region far greater than 
all Palestine, — works of fabulous and terrifying vast- 
ness to an unaccustomed eye, as if wrought by de- 
mons and not by men, — all were part of that inso- 
lent pomp of idolatry which had challenged and de- 
stroyed the poor district-worship of Jehovah. Partly 

* See Layard. 



CYRUS. — THE PERSIAN FAITH. 28T 

with terror and hate, partly with an heroic trust in 
the Arm they believed to be almighty, the faithful 
now answered back the challenge, of their conqueror ; 
and the bolder prophetic spirit triumphed already in 
the sure prospect of his overthrow. 

This passionate and vindictive hope grew more 
vivid as the time of deliverance drew near. " These 
nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy 
years/' said Jeremiah,* — and when these were ac- 
complished, that is, before the close of the second 
generation, — the captivity should be at an end. 
Fifty years had not yet passed, when the great Con- 
queror Cyrus, with his freshly organized military 
monarchy of leagued Medes and Persians, advanced 
from the north upon the plain of the Euphrates. In 
him the Jews were eager to find their promised 
deliverer. Already, in the prophecies of the later 
Isaiah,f Jehovah addresses him as "his shepherd," 
and " his Messiah, — whose hand he has upheld to 
subdue the nations." 

Besides, the Persians brought from their clear, cool 
mountain-region a simplicity of manners, and a purer 
type of worship, that might easily make them seem 
the natural allies of Israel in the great conflict with 
idolatry. An austere and imaginative temperament 
had — at least among the better interpreters of their 
doctrine — turned the gross nature-religion common 
to the East from the worship of the Sun or fire, to 
adoration of the pure elemental Light, which the re- 
cent reform of Zoroaster J had closely assimilated to 

* Ch. xxv. 11 ,12. t Ch. xlv. I. 

J According to the most probable chronology. 



288 THE CAPTIVITY. 

the simple monotheism of the Hebrews. The Dual- 
ism of the Parsic creed, the struggle it announced 
between the eternal powers of Good and Evil, would 
not be unwelcome to them now, as figuring the type 
of contest to which their religion had committed them. 
Ormuzd and Ahriman were but the more vague Ori- 
ental symbol of the God and Adversary of their 
people. At any rate, this, with other doctrines of 
Persian origin, is found strongly colouring the style 
of later Hebrew thought ; and, however undefined, 
may have had its effect now in making the new in- 
vaders seem to be expressly commissioned by Jeho- 
vah. 

The war of religion, therefore, which the Persians 
waged, more or less concealed under the war of pol- 
icy or conquest,* was one which would call out the 
strong partisanship of the Jews. In the confident 
tone of prediction, and in the suddenness of the 
reward, one might even infer a serviceable secret 
league between the conqueror and the expectant 
exiles within the gates. The Scripture narrative f 
summons the great Daniel to the royal banquet, to 
announce the doom which that very night would be- 
fall the sacrilegious and dissolute king. And within 
a year after his victory, Cyrus issues the decree 

* See extracts from the "Behistun Inscription," in Rawlinson's He- 
rodotus, Vol. II. 

t Daniel, chap. v. The manner in which Daniel is mentioned by 
Ezekiel (xiv. 14), who wrote from thirty-five to fifty-eight years before 
this event, has suggested the opinion that he was one of the earlier 
captives of Nineveh ; the " Book of Daniel " (written three centuries 
later) naturally placing him in the more famous epoch. Ewald, " Die 
Propheten," Vol. II. 



THE JEWISH COLONY. 289 

acknowledging the sovereignty of the One God who 
gave him victory, redeeming the captivity of the 
Jews, and authorizing their return to Palestine.* 

Henceforth the fortunes of the Hebrew race are 
narrowed down to those of the single colony of Judah, 
with its outlying branches in Babylon and Egypt; 
and the title " Jews " becomes appropriate, instead of 
that which more broadly designates the nation or the 
race. Here, too, we begin to trace the marked ef- 
fects on the national life and thought both of their 
experience of exile and of the wider intercourse 
henceforth open to them with the mind of other na- 
tions. The predominating influence was by turns 
Persian, Greek, and Roman. And the matter of 
chief interest in the later history is to follow the 
course of the successive influences, whereby the orig- 
inal type of Hebrew faith is so moulded and trans- 
formed, and so blended with other elements of the 
world's culture, that its germ of truth should finally 
ripen in a faith limitless and universal, and become 
the religion of the civilized world. 

The Captivity of Babylon had lasted a little more 
than fifty years.f We cannot tell the story of it in 
its events, for of these there are none, but only in its 
effects. One effect has been seen already, in weaning 
away the affections and interests of many from the 

* B. C. 536. See the decree in its Jewish dress, Ezra i. 2 -4. 

t To complete the prophetic seventy, some suppose an earlier trans- 
portation in the time of Jehoiakim, together with the hostages men- 
tioned in Daniel, ch. i. ; some, that Jeremiah dates from the time of his 
own announcement at the first rise of the Chaldaean power ; and some, 
that the period closes with the dedication of the second temple. But 
most narrators proceed without noticing the flaw in the chronology. 
13 8 



290 THE CAPTIVITY. 

land of their fathers, and naturalizing them in the 
East. It did not alienate their affections or pervert 
their faith as to their inherited religion. On the con- 
trary, they seem to have kept a loyal regard towards 
Jerusalem, and to have prided themselves on the as- 
siduous zeal of their piety, and the superior purity 
of their blood.* But they had no share in the adven- 
turous faith and pious enterprise of the Jewish Puri- 
tans. Their home was in another land. It was not 
for them to undergo again the privations and pains 
of exile. Their good-will and charity might attend 
the pilgrims ; and from their condition of comfort or 
command near the Persian throne, they might be of 
generous and timely service, as mediating between 
their countrymen and their monarch. But the half- 
century had made a gulf that broadly sundered them 
from the fortunes and sympathies of the West. Its 
first effect was seen, accordingly, in drawing this new 
line of separation, and making of Judah a divided 
people. 

Nor were its effects less marked on those who 
accepted the royal offer, and who represent hence- 
forth the state and destinies of Israel. As it intro- 
duced a new line of demarcation, so it blotted out 
the old ones. Hereafter, we know no distinctions 
of the tribe. The register of the returning Jews 
classes them only by families. The fiction of the 
twelve original tribes was still kept up in sundry 

* Signified in the statement cited from the Talmud, that Ezra took 
with him to Jerusalem all those of doubtful parentage, " so that the 
Jews left in Babylon should be pure like flour." " Whosoever dwells 
in Babylon," it is added, " is as though he dwelt in the land of Israel, 
and is reputed as clean." (Lightfoot.) 



THE TEN LOST TRIBES. 291 

vague traditions and in many a religions allusion ; 
but the reality of it was irrecoverably lost. The 
fortunes of the ten northern tribes have never been 
followed with the least approach to certainty. Jew- 
ish legend transplants them far eastward, towards 
central Asia ; where their identity is miraculously 
guarded, and where a vast and splendid kingdom, 
never visited by the traveller or to be seen by Gentile 
eye, preserves the chosen race (" an immense multi- 
tude not to be reckoned by numbers ") for their 
august coming destiny.* Modern fancy has traced 
their likeness in the character or customs of many 
a race, — the Affghans, the Persian Nestorians, and 
the Algonquins of North America. Looking merely 
to the likelihood of fact, one remnant of them may 
have mingled in Palestine among the mixed breeds 
that made up the Samaritan population ; * and an- 
other, if it escaped fusion with other races during its 
long exile, may have joined the returning Jews, and 
so the blood of every tribe should flow in the veins 
of each. Except in family genealogies, or in the 
sacred line of priests, nothing is known, since the 
first capture of Jerusalem, of those tribal divisions, 
or characteristic traits, so marked throughout the 
earlier history. Even the long feud of Ephraim and 
Judah survived only in the religious antipathy be- 
tween Samaritans and Jews. 

The ancient aristocracy represented in the honours 
of the Tribe being lost, there remained only the 
" caste aristocracy " of the religious orders. The 

* 2 Esdras xiii. 40-46. See also Eisenmenger, " Entdecktes Ju- 
denthum," concerning the fabulous empire of "Presthcr John." 



292 THE CAPTIVITY. 

Priesthood now appears, far more prominently than 
ever before, as a privileged and powerful class. It 
includes, or by degrees absorbs, all the power and 
dignity of the state. This was the consequence, in 
part, of circumstances none could control ; in part, 
of the separation that took place in Babylon. Doubt- 
less it was a heavy disappointment, both to the 
prophets and to the religious leaders generally, that 
so small a share of the people followed their lead to 
Palestine.* Including many families of doubtful 
descent, together with household servants, hirelings 
or slaves, the whole migration was less than fifty 
thousand. As a general thing, the more important 
and able of the population remained behind, — that 
part, too, which claimed purer degrees of blood. 
Besides sincere enthusiasts, the most valuable por- 
tion of such a colony, the migration must have 
gathered in its ranks the poor, the ignorant, the 
adventurous, — an untrained and motley mass. Their 
single common object was a religious one ; their one 
bond of union, loyalty to their religious chiefs. 
Thus every circumstance favoured the exclusive 
ascendency of the priests. As every way the ablest 
and most intelligent, they were also the fit and 
rightful leaders. Besides, it was a matter of impor- 
tance not to excite the jealousy of the royal power 
at Babylon. An ambitious secular chief or a turn 
of political agitation might have blasted the enter- 
prise at a breath. No thought of possible indepen- 
dence must be suggested ; no fear that the new 
settlement might ever be turned into a hostile gar- 

* See Jeremiah 1. 4, 19; Ezekiel xxxvii 11, 12. 



EITUAL AND SACKED BOOKS. 293 

rison. The quarrel with the Samaritans once nearly 
defeated the entire object by rousing such a sus- 
picion. To avoid it, a religious enterprise must be 
the only front it should present ; the only power to 
rule it should be a spiritual power. The regency 
of Priests was both the natural and the effectual 
resort, to check any budding jealousy and secure 
the germ of the infant colony from perishing. 

This immediate and decided ascendency of the 
priestly class aided to form several strongly marked 
features of the later Jewish character. The Ritual 
became a thing of exaggerated and exclusive conse- 
quence. So far as the local government was con- 
cerned, it was in fact almost the entire law. The 
Sacred Books were regarded with new and super- 
stitious veneration. This is the era of proselytism, 
of elaborate compilation, of assiduous comment, of 
canon-making. An anxious and minute erudition, 
or implicit deference to the closed canon of any book, 
always marks the decay of intellectual life. The age 
of Prophecy expired when the age of Creeds began. 
In place of the free, glad loyalty with which the Divine 
Sovereign of Israel is named in tales and ballads or 
religious songs of the elder time, we find presently 
the scrupulous superstition which held it profane 
to utter aloud the name Jehovah, and disguised it 
even in writing.* In place of the national faith, the 
spontaneous creative spirit that dictated psalm or 

* In Hebrew, by vowel-points corresponding not with the true name 
itself, but with another word signifying " Lord ; " which was substi- 
tuted for it in reading, and is its usual representative in Greek and 
English. The probable pronunciation, Yahveh, was preserved by the 
Samaritans. (Theodoret, quoted in Sophocles's Glossary, s. v. 'ia^e'.) 



294 THE CAPTIVITY. 

prophecy, we find the careful dividing of sections 
and numbering of words and letters in Holy Writ. 
The outline of the grand old theocracy is painfully 
preserved ; its meaning trimmed to the proportions 
of a feebler time and people, — instead of a free 
desert horde, or ambitious independent monarchy, 
a poor scant colony under the rule of priests. It 
was, indeed, a shadow of the old Hebrew institutions 
that remained, — a type of the new condition of 
things, showing what part had been fulfilled, and 
what was yet wanting to the nation's destiny. 

Some features of law or ritual were extended, and 
urged with scrupulous strictness, as those relating to 
holy time, — the fanatical observance of the Sabbath, 
and the realizing or revival of the sabbatical year. 
And while the Levitical law was thus strictly kept, 
the encroachments of Grecian culture on one hand, 
and on the other the great growth of Oriental tradi- 
tion or laborious comment, give us presently germs 
of the contending sects of later Jewish times. In 
the style of additions now made to the sacred books 
(such as the " Chronicles " and the later Prophets) 
we see the marked change in the type of Hebrew 
mind that resulted from the exclusive ascendency 
of the holy order. The priestly rule, in many es- 
sential regards, met both the fact and the want of 
the time. But by an inevitable fatality it prepared 
the way, through the steps just hinted at, for that 
bigoted formalism, that truculent and unlovely fanat- 
icism, so marked in the later Jewish character. 

In the social condition and temper of the people 
we trace yet another influence of the Captivity. 



EFFECT ON HABITS AND IDEAS. 295 

Twice within two generations their hold upon the 
soil of their birth had been wrenched away ; and, 
in the interval between, they were exiles in a land 
strange to their ancient ways. So the great change 
was wrought, which, from patient husbandmen on a 
scanty soil, made them traders, ready at any hazard 
for adventure, trade, and gain. The Jewish stock, 
too, was now very widely spread. It had three main 
branches, — the colonies in Babylon, Palestine, and 
Egypt, — and among these some way of constant com- 
munication would be found. And so there came 
about that singular blending of traits, which made 
the most bigoted provincial in the realm of faith at 
the same time the most thorough cosmopolite in the 
world of trade. The chance and broken settlements 
in Judaea, and the unsettled condition of that age of 
conquest, must have further helped to form this fea- 
ture of Jewish character, so exaggerated in later 
times by a thousand years of persecution, dispersion, 
and reproach. 

Still another result of the Captivity remains to be 
more distinctly noted, — its effect on religious doc- 
trines and ideas. Close contact with the Chaldee 
and Persian theocracies had very considerably en- 
larged the circle of Hebrew speculation. The Zoro- 
astrian doctrine of immortality, in the form of 
bodily resurrection from the realms of death, begins 
to be current in the dominant Jewish sect, and be- 
comes, a little later, a received article in the popular 
creed, the root of many an extravagant fable that 
decked the dream of an earthly paradise.* To this 

* See Eisenmenger. 



296 THE CAPTIVITY. 

was added a gorgeous and fanciful mythology of the 
invisible world. The general notion and hierarchy 
of the Angels is derived mainly from the Persian, 
names of Hebrew origin being assigned to the seven 
" Amschaspands " that surround the Throne of 
Light ; * while the particular forms of fancy, vividly 
drawn in the visions of Ezekiel and Zechariah, repro- 
duce the well-known symbols found in the buried 
palaces of Nineveh. 

TVe find henceforth no trace of the old proneness to 
idolatry, the sensual Syrian fancy being utterly taken 
captive by the dreamy vastness of Oriental fable. Je- 
hovah is no longer the local deity of Palestine, or the 
"jealous God " of a petty clan ; but is more and more 
invested with the attributes of a spiritual and universal 
God.f His enemies or rivals are no longer the divin- 
ities of surrounding tribes, but the types of natural 
or moral evil symbolized in the Zoroastrian creed. 
The doctrine of the celestial hierarchy, and rebellious 
angels, with their influence on human destiny, pre- 
pares the way for the later fables of the Talmud, and 
the " endless genealogies " of Gnosticism. A pro- 
founder, at least a more grave and earnest, philoso- 
phy of Good and Evil sprang from commerce with 

* K. Simeon ben Lachish says : " The names of the angels came up 
in the hand of Israel out of Babylon. For before it was said, Then flew 
one of the Seraphim unto me; Before him stood the Seraphim. (Isaiah vi.) 
But afterwards, The man Gabriel ; Michael your prince. (Daniel ix. 21 ; 
x. 21.)" Lightfoot on Luke i. 26. 

t In the book of Nehemiah the word " God " is almost invariably 
used instead of the proper name " Jehovah," — a symptom of foreign 
influence found also in many of the later Psalms, among which may 
be reckoned the 103d and 139th. 



LATER JEWISH SPECULATIONS. 297 

this Oriental style of thought. Satan now appears,* 
after the likeness of the Persian Ahriman, as the foe 
of good, and the especial Adversary of Jehovah's peo- 
ple. And the conception of a fearful retribution of 
guilt after death, even if earlier rudiments of it may 
be traced, at least begins now to have a distinct effect 
to shape the doctrines of the Jewish creed. 

We find, too, a breadth and pliancy of speculation, 
a cosmopolitan temper in thinking, a yielding to 
foreign invasion in the realm of abstract ideas, char- 
acteristic of the later Jewish mind, curiously con- 
trasted with its former bare simplicity, and curiously 
blended with its precise and rigid formalism in mat- 
ters of faith. The very narrowness of their previous 
culture, and their superstitious deference to the letter 
of the Law, seem rather paradoxically to have made 
the Jews all the more open to these importations of 
opinion. Every analogy they found or fancied be- 
tween their Scripture and the sacred traditions of 
Chaldee or Persian, — as afterwards with the philos- 
ophy of the Greeks, — they would lay hold on as a 
divine sanction to the doctrine that claimed a specu- 
lative assent. And a later age is astonished to find 
not only the speculations of Plato traced to a Hebrew 
source, but Moses himself made the prince of philos- 
ophers, and a subtile creed of metaphysics prefigured 
in the naive legends of the book of Genesis. f This 
trait of mind was first brought into activity and relief 
during the time of the Babylonish Captivity. 

The colony that accepted the grant of a settlement 

* 1 Chronicles xxi. 1. 
t See below, " The Alexandrians." 
13* 



298 THE CAPTIVITY. 

among the ruined villages and forts of Judah put 
itself under the lead of Zerubbabel the governor * and 
Joshua the priest. Zerubbabel had been a favourite 
at the Persian court for his accomplishments and 
wit.f He now showed himself a stanch Israelite in 
affectionate and patient loyalty, — a man of resolute 
and enterprising temper, such as the forlorn pilgrim- 
age demanded. He was the deputy and represent- 
ative of the royal authority in the new and dependent 
state. Joshua, the high-priest, brought in his hands 
the symbols of the spiritual power, and by his pres- 
ence gave it the sanction of ancient institutions and a 
national worship. The whole colony amounted to 
near fifty thousand. :£ A single and sacred aim swal- 
lowed up whatever there might be of difference in 
opinion or incongruity of material. The enterprise 
was a religious one. Those who shared it were of 
the straitest sect of Jews, Covenanters in their creed, 
and exiles for their faith. The temper of the rising 
province was that of a narrow, intense, and bigoted 
nationality, tenacious of ancient custom, and rigidly 
exclusive of alien blood, chafing no doubt at the pro- 
tectorate the time compelled, and impatiently looking 
for the triumphant sovereignty which ancient seers 
foretold. 

Nor were circumstances wanting to exasperate, 
and bind all the closer the new sectarian national- 



* Called also Sheshbazzar. His title under the Persian commission 
was " Tirshatha," or governor. (Ezra i. 8, ii. 63; Nehemiah viii. 9.) 

t See the narrative in Esdras, chaps, iii., iv. 

$ Ezra ii. 64, 65. In exact numbers, 49,697, of whom 7,337 were 
servants, including " two hundred singing men and singing women/' 



ZERUBBABEL. — THE TEMBLE REBUILT. 299 

ity. The Holy Land — since half a century trampled 
and denied by hostile feet — offered her slender hos- 
pitality to the new migration. The mixed race of 
Samaritans had long held the better parts of it ; and 
during the long disorder the tribe of Edom, still hos- 
tile and resentful, had spread towards the north, seiz- 
ing many a possession in Judah or along the banks of 
Jordan. A miserable remnant of the former inhab- 
itants clung round the ruin of the sacred city, where 
the garrison that was left behind to keep down any 
tumult or rebellion continued long after to mark the 
presence and domination of a foreign power on the 
very heights of Moriah. 

The new temple, the first great undertaking of the 
colony, was a work of cost and hazard, beset by the 
straits of poverty, and the jealous ill-will of those who 
resented this new occupation of their territory. It 
may have been a wise precaution of Zerubbabel 
against an encroachment that would have demoral- 
ized the only motive he could trust to build on, when 
he rejected the suspicious aid of the Samaritans, but 
it had nearly nipped the enterprise in its germ. 
The foundations of the temple had been already laid, 
amidst religious festivities, the tears of a burdened 
and grateful memory, and the shouts of patriotic joy, 
when a deputation came from Samaria claiming kin- 
ship in faith, and proposing alliance in the religious 
work. This was promptly and disdainfully refused ; 
and " then the people of the land weakened the 
hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them 
in building." They found it no hard matter to de- 
fame the new colony with the wayward and suspi- 



300 THE CAPTIVITY. 

cious despotism of Cambyses, and a royal order 
forbade the rebuilding of the " bad and rebellious 
city." Then came the confusion of Cambyses 5 Egyp- 
tian conquest, the disasters suffered by the colony 
during his march, and the plots that followed his 
death, when the Chaldaeans (now degenerated from a 
great military power to a caste of " Magi ") made 
their desperate attempt to retrieve their fortunes by 
installing the false Smerdis as king in Babylon. 
During all these troubles there could be no hope 
in resuming the unfinished work ; " so it ceased unto 
the second year of Darius, king of Persia." 

This politic and sagacious sovereign was not slow 
to discover the error of blasting the still loyal colony 
by an ill-timed jealousy. The early years of his reign 
were spent in quelling the insurrections of the prov- 
inces, and constructing the admirable system of 
finance and police by which he built together the 
disjointed fragments of his empire.* The Jewish set- 
tlers, encouraged by the return of peace, and the ex- 
hortations of their prophets Haggai and Zechariah, 
were already moving afresh in their enterprise. When 
accused by Samaritan informers as building " a cita- 
del rather than a temple," it was easy to refer to their 
charter given by the great Cyrus ; which Darius rati- 
fied at once, adding munificent gifts, with orders to 
his satrap to encourage and defend them. Already 
they had gathered something of stability and comfort 
about the settlement. They " dwelt in their ceiled 
houses," and their defences were enough to give 

* In the popular Persian phrase, Cyrus was a father ; Cambyses, a 
master; Darius, a truckster, or "merchant-king." Herodotus, III. 89. 



4*7 



policy oL-JL^J 301 

colour to the invidious charges of their neighbours. 
And in about twenty years from the time of their 
first migration the great task was done, the seventy 
years of desolation were accomplished, and " the 
children of the Captivity kept the dedication of 
this house with joy." (B. 0. 516.) 

For more than half a century, until the time of 
Ezra, there is absolutely no record of the Jewish 
state ; * and we find only two or three fragments from 
the history of the next hundred and fifty years. The 
wise policy of Darius was followed by his successors, 
who indeed were too deeply involved in the great am- 
bitions and disasters of the monarchy to heed a petty 
outlying province. That policy yielded to the Jews 
a qualified independence, and trusted their strong 
local partisanship to guard the exposed frontier of 
Judah. The sympathy of their numerous kinspeo- 
ple in Babylon was a sufficient pledge of their fidelity 
to the great king. Spite of their provincial bigotry, 
they were loyal subjects in the main. The little col- 
ony that now represented the dominion of ancient 
Israel could not safely bargain its allegiance, or play 
its part among the powers of the world. Its obscure 
feebleness was its safety. Its charter of existence 

* In some part of this period, if anywhere, we are to insert the nar- 
rative of Esther (in the reign of Xerxes), and the apocryphal episode of 
Judith. (Judith iv. 8.) But the wreck of historical recollections, and 
the hopeless confusion of the names of the Persian kings, manifest in 
the Jewish traditions of this age, make it difficult to deal with these 
episodes as true matters of history. The worst insanity of despotic 
caprice would scarce have sanctioned the massacre of 75,000 subjects, 
under colour of self-defence against an irrepealable statute. (Esther 
viii. 11, ix. 16.) 



302 THE CAPTIVITY. 

it held by sufferance of a stronger will. The great 
storms of conquest blew over Judah to spend' their 
strength elsewhere. The long struggle of Persian 
and Greek, begun with the resentful invasion of Da- 
rius, and ending with the swift, broad conquests of 
Alexander in the East, scarce disturbed the little 
hierarchy that sheltered itself among the broken ram- 
parts of Jerusalem. And when the friendly empire 
is crushed under the resistless onset of the Macedo- 
nian, the petty Jewish state offers no resistance, but 
yields itself, with easy deference, to be the prize of 
the stronger arm. 

The Jews in Babylon meanwhile kept up their re- 
ligious estate and sympathies, with a line of sacred 
descent parallel to that in Jerusalem. Ezra was their 
" principal priest," — a man so devout that he was 
" worthy to have been the author of the Law, if God 
had not already given that dignity to Moses ; " so 
learned in the Scriptures, that one tradition asserts 
him to have written out the entire canon from mem- 
ory, since Nebuchadnezzar had burned all the sacred 
books. It was a signal service he rendered in the 
interior development of Judaism. The attention of 
Artaxerxes had been somehow called to the Jewish 
colony, and Ezra was commissioned to be his envoy 
to Jerusalem (B. C. 459). He was allowed to take 
with him all who desired to join the colony (about 
fifteen hundred men), and to carry rich gifts both 
from his countrymen and from the royal treasury. 
His spiritual rank in Babylon gave weight to his char- 
acter as champion of the Law; and reports of the 
new state of affairs would hasten his embassy of re- 



EZRA. 303 

form. " The good hand of his God was upon him ; " 
and so full of confidence in his divine mission, so full 
of a prophet's faith and a reformer's zeal he set forth, 
that he refused the royal guards, and passed through 
the hazards of the desert march unarmed and safe. 
" For I was ashamed," he says, " to require of the 
king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us 
against the enemy in the way ; because we had spoken 
to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all 
them for good that seek him, but his power and his 
wrath are against all them that forsake him. And 
the hand of our God was upon us ; and he delivered 
us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in 
wait by the way." 

On a far narrower scale, yet with results almost as 
signal and strongly marked, Ezra did for the hie- 
rarchy of Jerusalem what Hildebrand did long after 
for that of Rome : that is, he gave it shape, coherency, 
and a strenuous discipline, indispensable to its later 
strength. His chief task of external reform, too, was 
like Hildebrand's, — to correct the irregularity and 
abuses that had sprung up through the " mixed mar- 
riages " of priest and people. For the later colonists, 
like the early conquerors, had broken the line of 
rigid separation, and become considerably mingled 
among the populations of the land. Their excuse 
would doubtless be, that, as in many another case, 
the colonists were mostly men, and must seek wives 
where they might be found. No heresy in faith or 
depravity of morals is related to have followed this 
loosening of the bands of law ; but the popular con- 
science, trained to a ceremonial obedience, readily 



304 THE CAPTIVITY. 

took part with the reformer. The delinquents — a 
hundred and fourteen of their names are given — 
were forced to put away their wives and children. 
Politic and friendly alliance must yield to the rigour 
of the creed. The strict and exclusive Judaism of 
the later age had its seal and illustration in the ritual 
purity exacted by the zealous priest. 

The later acts of Ezra are known to us only by 
distant tradition, more or less uncertain. It was he 
that completed the Hebrew canon ; that wrote the 
books of Chronicles, as well as the brief sequel which 
bears his name ; that introduced the square character 
of the Hebrew text, and made the inspired revision 
of every line or letter of the sacred books. The 
name Malachi, " my Messenger," writer of the latest 
prophecy, is currently held among the Jews to be a 
title of Ezra. Apocryphal legends tell of other vis- 
ions and adventures, and his long conference with an 
angel touching the after fates of Zion.* Various 
reports of his death place it in extreme old age, — 
some, as late as a hundred and fifty years. It is his 
true merit and glory, that, by his reform of Jewish 
customs, and his labours on the written laws and 
records of his people, he more than any man was 
instrumental in giving shape and consistency to 
the later Judaism ; or, as their saying is, in " set- 
ting a hedge about their law." 

But the sudden reform of Ezra had provoked the 
anger of neighbouring districts, or local disasters had 
befallen from contentions among the greater powers, 
or the whole enterprise fell from the first behind its 

* 2 Esdras. 



NEHEMIAH. 305 

hopes.. " The remnant in the province were in great 
affliction and reproach ; the walls of Jerusalem were 
broken down ; its gates burned with fire ; " the peo- 
ple too few for their own defence. So the tidings 
came a few years later to Nehemiah, then the king's 
favourite and cupbearer in Susa. The Persian power 
had about this time suffered a series of reverses from 
the Athenian Cimon, terminating in a defeat at Sala- 
mis in Cyprus (just after his death), which left the 
Greeks masters of the Levant ; and the need of 
strengthening a loyal province on the exposed fron- 
tier may have favoured the expedition of Nehemiah. 
Under the king's commission he now entered on a 
course of vigorous administration, which continued 
near forty years. Roused by their new leader, the 
people rebuilt within two months their ruined fortifi- 
cations, — a labour of constant peril, in which " every 
man with one of his hands wrought in the work, and 
with the other held a weapon." * And once more 
there was promise of a well-administered and de- 
fended peace. 

But the people were poor, and distressed with 
dread of famine : many of them under debt to their 
richer neighbours to pay their current tribute to the 
government, and threatened with being sold as slaves. 
Nehemiah " was very angry when he heard their cry." 
" Will you even sell your brethren ? " he demanded 
of the usurers; " or shall I buy them of you?" They 
had nothing to reply ; and in the great tide of public 

* " Est igitur rarus, rus qui colere audeat, isque 
Hac arat infelix hac tenet arma manu." 

Ovid, Tristia, v. 10, 15. 
T 



806 THE CAPTIVITY. 

indignation he compelled them to restore the- mort- 
gaged lands and vineyards, and declared the general 
abolishing of debt. Drawn by his own generous 
example, gifts flowed freely into the sacred treasury. 
The deserted streets of Jerusalem were repeopled by 
numbers from the surrounding country, who volun- 
teered for the necessary defence. The reform begun 
by Ezra was sustained by the well-timed vigour of 
his coadjutor, while his own labours on the law and 
learning of the state found the advantage of securer 
shelter and better aids. The "great Synagogue" of a 
hundred and twenty of the most devout and learned 
Jews, — some of whom the vague chronology makes 
extant a century later, - — is related, with much proba- 
bility and some fabulous exaggeration, to have shared 
in this pious service. The ritual law was now for- 
mally established, or confirmed anew in its existing 
shape ; the sacred books were publicly read by scribes; 
and such a celebration was had of the great festival 
of Tabernacles as had not been " since the days of 
Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day." 

Eeturning to Susa when his work seemed well 
accomplished, Xehemiah was again recalled to the 
task that still required his vigorous and shaping 
hand, and he scarcely relinquished it until his 
death, at the age of seventy. 

Among the later acts of his administration, his 
strict and impartial discipline had banished several 
of the most powerful of an opposition party. Of 
these was Manasseh, a man strong by position as 
high-priest's son, and as son-in-law of the Samaritan 
prince or governor. His alliance had made a dan- 



MANASSEH. — MURDER OF JOSHUA. 307 

gerous entrance to Samaritan intrigue, to which his 
exile put a sudden stop. His father-in-law, to avenge 
more completely his defeat and damaged pride, built 
a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, of which Manasseh 
was made high-priest, that the line of regular de- 
scent, thus turned awry, might vex the religious 
loyalty of the Jews. Some, it is said, were drawn 
away, — those already discontented with the strict 
rule of priest and governor, and coveting the laxity 
of the half-gentile creed. But all the more bitter 
was the resentment of the faithful. An angry strife 
that would not be appeased sprang from the rivalry 
of the two temples ; and the Jewish proverb of con- 
tempt classes among the unpardonable foes of God 
"the foolish people that dwell in Sichem."* Ma- 
nasseh, as the account proceeds, being of the high- 
priest's family, had taken with him a copy of the 
Hebrew law, which the Samaritans mangled and 
corrupted to serve their claim of orthodoxy ; f so 
that the war of the temples was further embittered 
by controversy about the sacred books. 

The next century offers us only one event of any 
note, and that a tragic one. The high-priest Judah, 
a generation after the reforms of Nehemiah, left two 
sons, Jesus or Joshua, and John. The latter suc- 
ceeding to his father's dignity, Joshua was suspected 
of a plot with the Persian governor to get the office 
for himself. John stabbed him in the temple ; and 
personal resentment as well as public justice de- 

* Ecclcsiasticus 1. 26. 

t Particularly in Deuteronomy xxvii. 4, where the Samaritan text 
substitutes Gerizim for Ebal. 



308 THE CAPTIVITY. 

manded vengeance from the Persian. (B. C. 366.) 
To the horror of the Jews, the temple was now for 
the first time profaned by Gentile feet ; and the only 
reply to their remonstrance was the stern question, 
" Am I not purer than the murdered body ? " Al- 
most for the first time the imperial hand was felt for 
chastisement instead of shelter, in the seven years' 
penance imposed upon the city to expiate the sacri- 
legious fratricide. A league with Egypt about this 
time to throw off the Persian yoke is also spoken 
of; and this, with the incident just told, may denote 
the embittered party feeling, the religious degen- 
eracy, and the decline of loyalty towards the decay- 
ing empire, that probably marked this period of the 
nation's life. 

In five and thirty years that empire had fallen 
under the Macedonian conquest, and Alexander the 
Great was king in Babylon. (B. C. 331.) The 
Grecian arms had crushed the last great Oriental 
dynasty. An empire representing a more advanced 
social condition, and a higher type of intellect, now 
supplanted the perishing Asiatic despotism. The 
Eastern world was brought into new relations with 
the West. Grecian language, science, and cultiva- 
tion came to explore and possess the fields once held 
by the old theocracies of the East. The process was 
cruel and bloody ; the result, auspicious and provi- 
dential. Free intercourse among populations long 
hostile and estranged enlarged the domain of peace- 
able commerce. It gave new and needed stimulus 
to the advanced intelligence of the time. It opened 
in new forms the eternal questions of reason and 



ALEXANDER IN JERUSALEM. 309 

faith. It tempered by Grecian thought the vague- 
ness of Oriental theology, while it gave fresh food 
to the religious imagination of the speculative and 
sceptic Greek. It assimilated by a subtile alchemy 
a thousand discordant elements. It established a 
tongue flexible beyond every other, and of infinite 
resources, as the common speech of the civilized 
world ; and prepared the way of thought, as the 
Roman power prepared the way of empire, for the 
advent and swift conquests of a faith, claiming to 
be universal. 

Results so vast in their bearing on human destiny 
were hidden from the eye of man, though clear in 
the great scheme of an historic Providence. Yet, in 
its own way, Jewish legend has symbolized this equal 
encounter of the two great forces, — the West with 
its victorious intellect and arms, the East with its 
victorious faith. When Alexander the Great, on the 
eve of his final conquest, had come to the country 
of the Jews, an enemy of their state accused their 
narrow and unjust policy, and besought him to re- 
duce the insolent city to subjection. But as he ap- 
proached, with his pomp of soldiers and his staff of 
mighty captains, the Jews hung their streets with 
holiday garlands, and formed a great procession, as 
for some religious festival, and went forth silently, 
clad all in white, the high-priest, with his richest 
robes of sacrifice, at their head, to meet the con- 
queror. Their eager enemies looked now to see 
them humbled and given up to them for vengeance. 
But Alexander, when he saw the form and apparel 
of the priest, gorgeous with purple, scarlet, and gold, 



310 THE CAPTIVITY. 

and with the jewelled plate bearing the sacred name 
of God, went reverently forward and bowed before 
the priest, adoring that awful Name. Then, when 
his officers were astonished, and thought him mad, 
he answered them, that so in vision that form had 
appeared to him in Macedon, promising him victory 
in that name ; and that his triumph in the approach- 
ing battle was now sure. Having so spoken, he en- 
tered the city, and performed the solemn rite of 
sacrifice ; and confirmed to the Jews all their privi- 
leges, and granted them every favour that they de- 
sired. And so the majesty of Jehovah was once more 
manifest, not only in delivering the holy city from 
the vengeance of its enemies, but in receiving the 
willing adoration of the mighty conqueror of the 
Eastern world. 

Twelve years later, Ptolemy, the half-brother of 
Alexander, having entered Jerusalem as if to take 
part peaceably in the Sabbath-sacrifice, made himself 
violently master of it. (B. C. 320.) Then followed 
the long struggles of ambition between Syria and 
Egypt, which, after twenty years, left Judaea for a 
century more a dependency of the latter power. A 
hundred thousand Jewish captives are said to have 
been removed to Egypt, where their descendants 
grew presently to a million, and made two fifths of 
the population in the splendid capital city, Alexan- 
dria. And, under the indulgent rule of the Ptole- 
mies, each portion of the Hebrew stock was preparing 
to take the singular and important part assigned it 
in the great historic drama about to be unfolded. 



X. THE MACCABEES. 

THE annexing of Palestine to the realm of Ptole- 
my repeats, as it were, that event of the early 
history which transferred Israel and his fortunes to 
Egypt. As the old hierarchy of the Nile had been 
essential to the first stage of Hebrew development, so 
the Greek arms and culture that now displaced it 
gave force and direction to the last. And whether 
in Palestine or Egypt, the Jews began now to be 
powerfully affected by the new influences of the 
West. Their colony at Alexandria, favoured by an 
indulgent dynasty, had its own temple and inde- 
pendent worship ; it was acted on, steadily and 
profoundly, by the mind of Greece that found there 
its adopted home ; and, dwelling for three centuries 
in the intellectual capital of the world, brought 
about that extraordinary fusion of Greek and Ori- 
ental thought, which has acted so powerfully on the 
modern mind in the shape of the Catholic theol- 
ogy. The Palestinian branch, after long yielding to 
the encroachments of foreign custom, until seeming- 
altered and degenerated to the very centre, was at 
length roused to a passionate reaction by the profane 
and implacable tyranny of its masters. Taking ad- 
vantage of the disorder into which the Syrian power 



312 THE MACCABEES. 

had fallen, it succeeded, under a line of heroic and 
able champions, in reviving the lost sovereignty of 
Judah. With the alliance, and under the cautious 
protection of Rome, its little monarchy endured the 
shocks of a century ; and it still retained a native 
king, a population of zealous faith, a ritual unim- 
paired, and a temple of undiminished splendour, 
down to the death of Herod, almost exactly contem- 
porary with the birth of Christ. 

For about a century after its treacherous capture 
by Ptolemy, Judaea was embraced in the equivocal 
protectorate of Egypt. The stanch and united col- 
ony, now grown to be a populous little state, lay as a 
coveted prize on the Syrian border. At one time it 
became the basis of a diplomatic bargain, or the price 
of a family alliance ; at another, the spoil of war. 
So bandied from hand to hand among the quarrel- 
some masters of the East, "like a ship in a storm 
(says Josephus), beaten about by the waves on both 
sides," it was exposed to the rudest invasion of that 
foreign influence against which its temper was so 
prudently jealous. The subtile intellect and secular 
culture of the Greeks were led, with their spread- 
ing maritime enterprise, towards the little theocratic 
state lying so near the great highways of empire ; * 
while the victor's policy would work, by stealth or 
violence, to suppress the arrogant provincial creed, 
and enforce conformity with pagan ritual. Thus the 
integrity of the Jewish worship was perilled alike by 
flattery and fear. Among the changing fortunes of 

* It is now that Grecian names, as Palestine, Idumcea, Ptolemais, 
Scythopolis, begin to predominate over Hebrew. 



SIMON THE JUST. 313 

this period, the more strict and resolute Hebrew 
spirit was held as it were in abeyance, or became the 
property of a sect. Nothing in the previous course 
of things prepares us to expect the intense and sus- 
tained heroism of its reaction, or the inexhaustible 
resources of which it was able to take advantage. 

Fortunately for the event, the period of Egyptian 
conquest had coincided with the ten years administra- 
tion of Simon the Just, whom Jewish tradition makes 
a survivor of the " Great Synagogue," ascribing to him 
a part scarce inferior to Ezra in the revival of the Law. 
To quote the words of the son of Sirach, " he was as 
a morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the 
moon at the full ; as the sun shining on the temple of 
the Most High, and as the rainbow, beaming from 
the bright clouds." * His prudent forethought had 
strengthened, not only the spiritual fabric of the Law, 
but the outward defences of the sanctuary,! so as to 
prepare against the twofold invasion that was im- 
pending. His life was a revival of the better hope of 
Israel. His death was attended by omens of popular 
terror ; the scapegoat (that used to be " broken into 
bits when scarce half way down the precipice it was 
thrown from ") fled from the high-priest's hand, and 
was lost among the hills, or " eaten by the Saracens ;" 
the sacred fire and lamps refused to burn ; the shew- 
bread of the temple failed. J And in the century suc- 
ceeding, when the nation had rallied from its disasters, 

* Ecclesiasticus 1. 6, 7. 

t Constructing, in place of the ruined aqueducts and imperfect 
fountains, a cistern or reservoir, " in compass as a sea." 
J Lightfoot on Matthew iii. 7. 
14 



314 THE MACCABEES. 

his eloquent eulogist enrolls him among the most 
sacred and honoured names of the elder history. 

The little religious municipalities of Judaea were 
another safeguard in any obstinate struggle with 
heathenism. The colonists, as they dispersed among 
the hills of Palestine, carried everywhere the seeds 
of enterprise, personal independence, and religious 
loyalty. Each village (as we find it so clearly 
marked in the Gospel times) made in some regards 
an independent community. Each had its own syna- 
gogue, on the model of that in the metropolis, with 
its stated times of worship, and its reverent guardian- 
ship of the Law. Thus the fresh nationality fastened 
itself to the soil by a thousand roots at once. Pales- 
tine was a fortified country, bristling with religious 
garrisons, and defended by a drilled militia of vet- 
eran " saints."* The practice also of national feasts, 
religious pilgrimages to the temple at Jerusalem, and 
pious oblations, which gradually amassed surprising 
stores of wealth in the sacred treasury, made a con- 
stant counterpoise to the roving temper of this trader- 
race, and kept in check the tendency to merge and 
lose itself among gentile populations. The Palestin- 
ian Jews clung with a fervid and exclusive devo- 
tion about their own temple and city, however dis- 
tant their commercial migrations, or however profaned 
the holy places might be by heathen invasion, impure 
rites, or fratricidal violence. Their first moment of 
complete sovereignty they improved to destroy the 
rival temple on Mount Gerizim ; and no " abomina- 
tion of desolation " their capital might suffer from 

* Chasidim. 



HELLENISM. 315 

infidel conquerors could excuse in their eyes the 
sacrilege of dedicating to Jehovah another shrine in 
Egypt. Thus something of the old Hebrew spirit, 
in a narrower and intenser form, abode in Palestine 
unimpaired ; and was strengthened alike to survive 
the insidious undermining of Grecian scepticism, or 
to drive the persecutor back with sharper weapons 
than his own. 

The busy and pervasive intellect of the Greeks, 
already in its decline, began presently to invade this 
stronghold of religious loyalty. The flattering fa- 
vours of Ptolemy, who had bought at princely cost 
the literary treasures of Hebrew Scripture, first 
opened the way to something like equal intercourse 
between the Jew and Greek. This was favoured on 
one side by the wide dispersion of the Jews through 
maritime and trading enterprise, and by alliances 
and fancied consanguinities with foreign states ; * on 
the other by the Grecian genius, at once organizing 
and speculative, which began to remould the forms 
of Oriental civilization, and to trace out the novel 
elements of thought or faith in the Asiatic mind. 

The intellectual compromise thus brought about 
was manifest among the Jews chiefly in that phase of 
doctrine known to us as Sadduceeism. The Sadducees 
were in their origin a rationalizing or Hellenizing 
sect, whatever they may afterwards have become as a 
political party. As such, they were averse to the 
intense intolerance of the Chasidim, or " saints," and 
would be looked on in turn by them as little better 

* As with the Parthians and Spartans. (See Josephus, XIV. 10, 22 ; 
1 Mace xii. 2i.) 



316 THE MACCABEES. 

than infidels or traitors. Their stronghold was a 
professed conservatism ; adhering to the Mosaic law 
alone, which they rendered in their barren fashion, 
and denouncing the prophetic dreams, or foreign 
fables, which so won the enthusiasm of the more 
pious. 

And so sectarian lines began to divide the nation. 
On one side, Babylonish theosophy and fable min- 
gled with the tenacious ritualism of the more devout, 
to make the popular creed, and found the sect of 
Pharisees ; on the other, new ideas and customs from 
the West gave something of a cosmopolite and aris- 
tocratic tone to their rationalist opponents. And 
while party lines were thus drawn, and party dissen- 
sions imbittered, many kept aloof from them all ; and 
revolting from those who " made an art or trade of 
piety," withdrew to an ascetic, unsocial, and monastic 
life, to which certain Egyptian mystics already began 
to show the way, — substituting the ecstasies of de- 
votion for the plainer practices of piety, repute as 
exhorters or wonder-workers for popular show or 
political intrigue, the spirit of a community or clan 
for patriotism, solitary penance or barren toils for 
home and social duties. And thus, in this century 
of political revolution, invading doubt, and intellect- 
ual compromise, we naturally find germs of the three 
well-known sects that afterwards divided the Jewish 
state, — the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. 

Of the character of the Egyptian rule only a single 
illustration is given. The avarice or craft of Onias, 
the high-priest, had kept back for several years the 
tribute due to Ptolemy ; and a corps of " farmers of 



JOSEPH THE TAX-GATHERER. — ANTIOCHUS. 317 

the revenue " were about to bid for the privilege of 
legal pillage, — the old way of collecting government 
taxes. But a young man Joseph, sent as envoy to 
Ptolemy, succeeds by his bold frankness in winning 
the king's good humour, and carries his point by bid- 
ding twice as high as any other, naming the king 
himself as his security. With a retinue of armed 
men to make the royal indorsement good, he puts to 
death the wealthiest men of one or two refractory 
towns, confiscating their estates ; and for more 
than twenty years succeeds not only in forwarding 
the promised sum, but in bringing out the industry 
and resources of the province, and so leaving the 
people far more flourishing than he found them, 
while he dies immensely rich. But a violent family 
feud breaks out after his death. His youngest son, 
Hyrcanus, is driven beyond the Jordan, where he 
closes a career of marauding with death by his own 
hand ; and at the same time we find a powerful in- 
clination among the Jews to revolt from Egypt, and 
accept the conquering sovereignty of Syria. The 
Jews in Egpyt are threatened with indiscriminate 
massacre, which they scarce escape ; and Antiochus 
the Great wrests the whole district of Palestine from 
the feebler grasp of Ptolemy, first winning the Jew's 
good-will by many singular favours.* B. C. 205-198. 
By this revolution Antioch became one of the most 
important head-quarters of the Aramaean Jews, as 
distinguished from the Hellenistic, whose metropolis 
was Alexandria. 

It is just here that the Republic of Rome begins to 

* See the detail of them in Josephus, XII. 3, 4. 



318 THE MACCABEES. 

be powerful in the East, and its career of conquest 
to be heralded by its presence as umpire in Asiatic 
quarrels. Hannibal had just been overthrown at 
Zama, and the unchallenged sovereignty of the West- 
ern world lay with the great Italian city. Alarm for 
their own dominion began to be felt among the suc- 
cessors of Alexander. Antiochus leagued himself 
with Philip of Macedon, and invited the exile Hanni- 
bal to his court. The league was broken by the de- 
feat of Philip and the death of the two other allies. 
But while Rome remained, in fact, arbiter of the 
East, it was her prudent policy for yet another cen- 
tury to keep the balance of power there, and not lay 
her grasp on the small, divided sovereignties which it 
was more profitable to play off against each other. 
Judaea was but the chance victim of a game between 
Syria and Egypt, under the vigilant and wary suffer- 
ance of Rome. 

Antiochus Epiphanes * — a name of eternal infamy 
in history — was a young man, brave and handsome, 
as his coins show him, and a true Greek in his love 
of art ; but frivolous and obstinate, sensual, cruel, 
and superstitious. From his victories in Egypt, which 
he was fast reducing to subjection, he was warned off 
by the formidable voice of Rome, whose alliance was 
sued by Ptolemy. But the same patient policy that 
drove him from the Nile left him now unmolested in 
Judaea ; and it was not till a point of resistance was 
already found in the indomitable temper of the peo- 
ple, that the career of his profligate tyranny was 

* Epiphanes or Epimanes, — the glorious or the furious ; for Greek 
wit delighted in this play of names. 



HELIODORUS. — JASON. 319 

stayed, and Rome assumed a remote protectorate of 
Palestine. 

A little before, Heliodorus, the treasurer of the 
Syrian king, being sent to seize the sacred treasures 
betrayed to him by one of the rival priests, had been 
driven off in deadly fright. " For there appeared a 
horse, with a terrible rider upon him, clad in com- 
plete harness of gold, and he ran fiercely and smote 
at Heliodorus with his fore feet : moreover two young 
men notable in strength, excellent in beauty, and of 
gorgeous apparel stood by him on either side, and 
scourged him with many sore stripes ; and Heliodo- 
rus fell suddenly to the ground, and lay speechless, 
without all hope of life." And so the sacrilegious 
plunder was prevented for a time. 

But the king's rapacity was roused, and watchful 
of its opportunity. This was soon found in the 
party strifes and Hellenizing spirit among the ruling 
Jews themselves. Joshua (who, affecting Grecian 
fashion, called himself Jason) purchased from Anti- 
ochus, by a bribe of three hundred and sixty talents, 
his support as high-priest ; and the most sacred 
dignity was thus openly set to sale, and bought of a 
foreign despot. The office got by his heathen alli- 
ance Jason administered in a way worthy of the 
bargain. The charges against him are sufficiently 
explicit, and very bitter. He " forthwith brought 
his own nation to the Greekish fashion ; " he com- 
pelled young men to adopt a foreign dress ; he 
established a gymnasium where the nude contests 
of the Greeks came in fashion, and unworthy Jews 
" made themselves uncircumcised ; " he terrified the 



320 THE MACCABEES. 

priests from the performance of sacred rites ; he 
sent rich gifts to a shrine of Hercules, which the 
messengers, in terror at the sacrilege, " employed 
to the making of galleys." * Within two years Jason 
was outbid by his own envoy, Onias or Menelaus, 
who, for about the same space, played a like game 
of plunder and sacrilege, " increasing in malice, and 
being a great traitor to the citizens," till Jason, 
hearing a false rumour of Antiochus's death, " took 
at least a thousand men, and suddenly made an 
assault upon the city," which he entered and treated 
with merciless revenge. But Antiochus returning, 
baffled and in a rage, from his campaign in Egypt, 
retook the city with great violence and slaughter. 
It was on the Sabbath ; and of the helpless, unre- 
sisting crowd, " forty thousand were slain in the 
conflict, and no fewer sold than slain." 

Such was the course of tyrannous apostasy that 
now exposed the Jews to the horrors of a religious 
persecution. Antiochus took with him from Jerusa- 
lem the prodigious spoil of eighteen hundred talents, 
and left there, as governor, a man " for his country, 
a Phrygian, and for manners more barbarous than 
he that set him there," with the bloody commission 
to root out the Jewish religion at all hazards. Every 
injunction of the ritual was forbidden. Mothers 
who secretly performed the rite of circumcision were 
strangled with their infants in their arms. Under 
an edict of " uniformity," the Jewish was made to 
conform to the Pagan ritual. The temple at Jerusa- 
lem was dedicated to Zeus Olympius, as that on 

* 2 Mace. chap. iv. 



ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES. — MATTATHIAS. 321 

Gerizim had already been to Zeus, the strangers' 
god. Jews were forced to bear wreaths of ivy in 
Dionysiac festivities. The sacred books were hunted 
out everywhere and burned, those who hid them 
being put to death. As the bitterest insult to 
Hebrew custom, swine were slain on every altar ; 
and Jews were compelled to sacrifice or eat the 
unclean flesh under penalty of the most frightful 
tortures.* Freethinkers and Greeks seemed com- 
pletely victorious for a time. Antiochus had his 
party and his spies in Jerusalem ; he " mocked at 
every god but Mars ; " and his boast was that he 
had " abolished the deity of the Jews." 

It was at this point,f when the long-brooding 
hostility between native faith and foreign innovation 
had come to a head, and nothing less than the very 
existence of the Jewish name and religion was at 
stake, that the reaction took place, astonishing alike 
for its desperate hardihood and its brilliant success, 
— a struggle which beat back the whole invading 
tide of heathenism, and gave immortal glory to the 
name of the Maccabees. 

An old man, Mattathias, son of Asmonai, who lived 
in the hill-country of Judaea towards the sea, struck 
down an apostate Jew whom he saw offering a Pagan 
sacrifice. It was the signal of open resistance. Mat- 

* See the tragical story of the mother and her seven sons, 2 Mace, 
chap. vii. 

t To this period, most probably, belongs the composition of the 
"Book of Daniel," with its Messianic visions and its apocrypha] 
additions ; possibly, too, the Book of Enoch. We are also told of 
" Psalms of Solomon/' a book deeply tinged with the same stylo 
of thought, in which the expression Xpiaros Kvpios occurs. 

14* U 



322 THE MACCABEES. 

tathias roused a party of zealous religionists ; at- 
tacked the royal troop, and drove them off with 
slaughter of several ; and then fled with a large 
company of the bold and faithful to the caves and 
glens of the same mountain region that had sheltered 
the outlaw David. 

The five sons of Mattathias — John, Simon, Judas, 
Eleazar, and Jonathan — became the bold, wary, and 
skilful leaders of the revolt. They all died, one by 
one, by treachery or violence, but not before they 
had sustained the banner of Judah for more than 
thirty ye^rs. From their mountain retreat they now 
descended as they had opportunity upon the plains 
and villages. They overthrew pagan altars ; slew 
their apostate countrymen ; " what children soever 
they found within the coast of Israel uncircumcised 
those they circumcised valiantly ; " and held out 
with marvellous success and skill against every party 
despatched to hunt them down. Their followers 
were mostly of the sect known as Chasidim, — saints 
or purists — fanatic zealots of the law, with all the 
dauntless energy, the fierce enthusiasm, the implaca- 
ble and resolute faith of the Covenanters, whom in 
position and fortune they so much resemble. Their 
creed did not suffer them to strike a blow in self- 
defence upon their Sabbath ; and, seizing this advan- 
tage, their pursuers once smothered a thousand of 
them together in a cave. Then Mattathias urged 
the clear necessity to overbear the fatal scruple ; and 
the loyal band were thereafter unconquerable. Dy- 
ing in his fastness the following year, the stern old 
man gave his third son Judas, named the Maccabee, 



JUDAS THE MACCABEE. 323 

the charge of leader, and bade him " recompense 
fully the heathen, and take heed to the command- 
ments of the Law." So Judas and his companions 
banded themselves anew, and " fought with cheerful- 
ness the battle of Israel." 

The war of defence was presently changed into one 
of attack by the bold and sagacious chieftain. The 
smaller parties sent against him he invariably cut to 
pieces at every odds. When a force of near fifty 
thousand was sent by Antiochus to capture his few 
hundreds, and a detachment of five thousand came 
to surprise him by night, Judas was beforehand with 
his assault, took the enemies' camp with great spoil, 
and put the whole host to flight ; then the next year 
totally routed a much greater force, so that the whole 
southern region was in his possession. Now was the 
time to rescue and purify the sacred city. " Jerusa- 
lem lay void as a wilderness ; there was none of 
her children that went in or out : the sanctuary also 
was trodden down, and aliens kept the stronghold ; 
the heathen had their habitation in that place ; and 
joy was taken from Jacob, and the pipe with the 
harp ceased. . . . And when they saw the sanctuary 
desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burned 
up, and shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest 
or in one of the mountains, yea, and the priests' 
chambers pulled down, they rent their clothes, and 
made great lamentation, and cast ashes on their 
heads, and fell down flat to the ground upon their 
faces, and blew an alarm with the trumpet, and 
cried towards heaven." The pious victors etfecUHl 
the purifying of the temple, and such repairs as were 



324 THE MACCABEES. 

within their power ; and then, in the joy of their 
triumph, they established the great winter festival of 
Dedication. (B. 0. 165.) The fortifications of the city 
were now restored, and the ancient capital, wrecked 
and dismantled by the shocks of its great convulsion, 
still gave shelter against any sudden assault. 

The region in which Judas had won some degree 
of independence and security was blasted and deso- 
late from its still fresh disasters, and his position was 
one of extreme hazard. Fortunately, Antiochus had 
drawn off his main strength in some schemes of con- 
quest towards the east. He was defeated, and died 
on his return, — the Jewish account says, in the an- 
guish of remorse at his atrocities. His treasury was 
empty, and little seems to have been dreaded from 
that quarter for some years, unless it were an act of 
treachery. But there were jealousies among neigh- 
bouring states to be guarded against, and hostilities 
to be suppressed by a marauding and border war. 
This Judas waged successfully for some five years. 
Dividing his force into three parties, and victorious 
both by the terror of his own name and the skill of 
his brother Simon, he reconquered almost the whole 
soil of Palestine. Hostile towns his troops laid 
waste with all the horrors of old Hebrew vengeance. 
Pagan temples he demolished with Jewish icono- 
clastic zeal. Combining his power as military com- 
mander with the high-priest's office, he ruled justly 
and humanely the people whose freedom his sword 
had won. He still further fortified himself by a 
strict alliance with the Romans, " hearing that they 
were mighty and valiant men, and such as would 



JUDAS AND JONATHAN. 325 

lovingly accept all that joined themselves unto them, 
and make a league of amity with all that came to 
them." This league seems to have been of no prac- 
tical avail, except as it may have given more con- 
sequence to the position of the Jewish chieftain. A 
Syrian garrison was still unsubdued that commanded 
half the temple-hill ; and an army of a hundred thou- 
sand, mustering the desert-hordes, assailed him on 
the south. Jerusalem was forced to surrender, on 
condition that the laws and customs of the nation 
should be unmolested ; and again the sacred city 
suffered from the feuds occasioned by a false high- 
priest. One more desperate battle set the city free 
from its invaders, and left Judas a little longer 
master of the field. But in a Syrian attack that fol- 
lowed he was surrounded by a host of more than 
twenty thousand against three, deserted by the main 
part of his own force, enveloped in the wings of the 
army he had already in part discomfited, and killed 
fighting. Such was the life and fate of Judas the 
Maccabee. 

His brother Jonathan succeeded to the high-priest- 
hood and the chief command (B. C. 160). He was 
a man yet more subtle and wary in stratagem, and 
of infinite resource for the hazards of the long strug- 
gle that still had to be maintained, and for a time 
again by guerilla parties in the wilderness. The 
Roman alliance — in which he renewed the policy of 
Judas — was still of little service, except as giving 
moral weight to the Jews' declaration of independ- 
ence. Something more practical and effective was 
found in bargaining with the rival heirs of Antiochus, 



326 THE MACCABEES. 

Demetrius and Alexander, from each of whom Jon- 
athan got such terms of political recognition and 
immunity from tribute as to give him a real sover- 
eignty. The terms of alliance recognized him as high- 
priest and ruler. It gave him the nominal jurisdic- 
tion of the fortress on a mound between Zion and 
Moriah, from which the citizens were still plundered 
and harassed, and which Judas was never able to 
subdue ; and released the Jews " from tribute, salt 
tax, crown tax, the third of seed-corn, the half of 
fruit, tithes, and tributes of their cattle." Jonathan 
proved himself a trusty ally, and once relieved the 
king from the terror of a formidable insurrection 
that had broken out at Antioch. It was in fear of 
his good faith that one of the royal officers, plotting 
a conspiracy against the king, entrapped him in a 
tower at Ptolemais, slaughtered the men of his guard, 
and afterwards murdered him, first taking the treas- 
ure and hostages sent for his ransom ; and his death 
was lamented " as far as Sparta and at Rome." 
(B. C. 143.) 

John, the eldest brother, had already been cap- 
tured and killed in an ambuscade. Eleazar had 
been crushed under the weight of an armed elephant 
which he had thrust through the belly with his sword 
in the great Syrian invasion of the south. Of the 
five brothers there now remained only Simon, the 
most prudent and able administrator of all. Him 
the people at once welcomed to the supreme com- 
mand, " well pleased that Simon should be their 
governor and high-priest forever, until a faithful 
prophet [Messiah] should appear." His administra- 



SIMON. — JOHN HYECANUS. 327 

tion marks the era of returning prosperity and peace 
to Israel. His alliance with the dominant party hi 
Syria gave him an unmolested rule. The hostile 
fortress in Jerusalem, the monument of so much 
disaster, was levelled to the ground, — the garrison 
being first starved out, — and the hill it stood on 
shorn to an even plain. As a mark of sovereign 
power, Simon had the right granted him of striking 
coin ; and silver shekels, with their Syriac inscription 
betokening his wise and peaceful rule, are found in 
cabinets of the curious at thte day. " He took Joppa 
for an haven, and made an entrance to the isles of 
the sea ; the law he searched out, and every contemn- 
er of the law and wicked person he took away." In 
his only struggles against foreign pow T er he was fully 
successful. At home, the regency and priesthood 
were both made hereditary in his house. His three 
grown sons were of ability to be intrusted with the 
more remote and active enterprises, while he himself 
maintained at home a prosperous and brilliant peace 
for about eight years. 

Although Simon, with two of his sons, followed the 
fortune of his house in suffering a violent death, — 
being treacherously murdered at a banquet, — a third 
son, John Hyrcanus, survived him, and became father 
of the brief line of " Asmonasan kings." His own 
reign lasted almost thirty years. The military priest- 
hood of the Maccabees had not only revived the old 
heroic memories of the Hebrew race, but had ren- 
dered back to Israel the undisputed possession of the 
Holy Land. Edom (hereafter better known by its 
Greek name, Idumaea) was incorporated with Judah, 



328 THE MACCABEES. 

to be afterwards more closely identified with the Jew- 
ish fortunes, through the Herodian family. The vin- 
dictive jealousy of the Jews had its triumph in the 
complete destruction of the temple on Mount Geri- 
zim, and the ruin of the beautiful " hill-city " of 
Samaria, which was not only dismantled and for- 
saken, but its abundant water-springs turned to make 
of its very streets an uninhabitable marsh. With secu- 
rity and quiet returned the arts of peace ; and as the 
day of persecution and conflict had stimulated afresh 
the people's quenchless patriotic or Messianic hopes, 
recorded in such books as Daniel, Judith, and Enoch, 
so now, in the last age of native Hebrew literature, 
we find the more calm, but no less characteristic 
compositions of the son of Sirach, with the pictorial 
and stirring narrative of the " Maccabees." 

The victorious independence of Judsea gave new 
occasion also to the strife of native sects. All par- 
ties had become thoroughly nationalized in the long 
struggle ; and there is no longer on any side the pro- 
fession of compromise with the Greeks. But the sect 
of Sadducees still retained its character of a certain 
exclusiveness, scepticism, and intellectual pride, — 
the qualities that had made it court the intellectual 
aristocracy of Grecian culture. They had never adopt- 
ed, and they now thoroughly disowned, the Oriental 
theosophy, and the doctrines of " resurrection, angels, 
and spirits," which were welcomed so fondly by the 
more religious among the Jews ; and fell back on the 
code of primitive Mosaism (or what was received as 
such), as offering the simplest outline of religious 
thought, and the least hinderance to their Epicurean 



JOHN HYRCANUS. — THE PHARISEES. 329 

speculations and philosophical free-will. Their ad- 
vantage and power lay in times of peace. In the 
century preceding the great convulsion, theirs had 
been the dominant party up to the threatened absorp- 
tion of the national creed itself in the encroaching 
Hellenism. 

But the period of struggle, which drew sharp the 
party lines, and committed every man either for or 
against his native land and ritual, had given ascend- 
ency to the stricter sect of Pharisees, represented by 
the indispensable and uncompromising bigotry of the 
Chasidim. The dynasty of the Maccabees, sprung 
from their stanch and indomitable loyalty, naturally 
looked to them for support ; and John Hyrcanus, an 
intelligent and able constitutional prince, was identi- 
fied with that party till near the close of his reign. 
But bigotry and spiritual pride are more profitable 
allies in a struggle at odds against a relentless despot- 
ism, than useful auxiliaries in an administration of 
peace. The Pharisees made affairs of state subordi- 
nate to ritual scruples and the petty policies of a sect, 
— cruel or lenient by turns, still seeking to be popu- 
lar. Though apparently on friendly terms, a jealousy 
grew up between them and the government, till one 
of them, in phrase more broad than courteous, re- 
proached John as low-born and no true heir, and 
bade him show his good faith as ruler by laying down 
his power. The Pharisee leaders would not allow 
this to be an act of treason ; and, professing to be 
loyal themselves, they shielded the disloyalty of their 
associate. So John broke openly with them, and his 
rule found its natural support or ally in the rival 
sect. 



330 . THE MACCABEES. 

With John Hyrcanus expired the priestly regency 
of this heroic family. In him were combined all the 
elements of a position of command ; for, besides his 
birth and personal qualities, he was at once a king in 
sway, high-priest by office, and a prophet in the pop- 
ular reverence. The Roman alliance gave him, too, 
the advantage of a citizen, in some sense, of the 
imperial city ; while the dissensions at Rome, begun 
by the civil reforms of Gracchus, and resulting in the 
proscriptive massacres of Marius and Sylla, deferred 
for another generation the great spoils of ambition in 
the East. Thus, favoured both by the strength and 
weakness of its protector, the power of John descended 
without dispute to his sons, Aristobulus, and after- 
wards Alexander, the first to whom the title of king 
is usually given. Their authority rested on a differ- 
ent base from that of their heroic ancestry. It was 
not religious prestige or the priestly office or personal 
service to the state, but the claim of birth, the divine 
right of kings, which assumed a regal title, and held 
the diadem bestowed or allowed by Rome. 

These Jewish princes* were as wide apart in 
character as in name from the house whose honours 

* Called the Asmonsean kings. The genealogy of the house of As- 
monai, better known by the heroic name of Maccabees, is as follows : — 

1. Mattathias, son of Asmonai. 

2. Sons of Mattathias, — John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, Jonathan. 

3. Sons of Simon, — John Hyrcanus, Judas, Alexander. 

4. Sons of John Hyrcanus, — Aristobulus, Antigonus, Alexander 
Jannaeus. 

5. So?is of Alexander, — Hyrcanus (executed by Herod at the age of 
eighty) and Aristobulus (poisoned by partisans of Pompey). 

6. Sons of Aristobulus, — Alexander and Antigonus (both executed 
by the Romans). 



ALEXANDER JANN-ffiUS. 331 

they inherited. Aristobulus, the bloody, in his reign 
of two years, starved in prison his mother, whom 
John had left as regent ; and died in agonies of 
horror at learning the ghastly accident that had 
mingled his own blood with that of his brother An- 
tigonus, slain by his order in the palace-court. 

Alexander, named Jannaeus, in a reign of five and 
twenty years, was mostly occupied in petty wars, — 
generally unsuccessful, but indefatigable to begin 
afresh. He signalized himself in successive revolts 
of his people, first by the barbarous slaughter of 
six thousand, then by a civil war of some six years, 
which cost ten thousand lives, and finally by cruci- 
fying eight hundred, whose wives and children were 
slaughtered before their eyes as they hung in death- 
agonies upon the cross. The people were so incensed 
against him, that they not only pelted him with cit- 
rons in the street, insulting him with opprobrious 
names, but the insurgents gloried in the tortures that 
revenged their enmity, and the only terms of peace 
they offered were that the tyrant should kill himself. 
A restless, dissolute, ambitious man, called the Thra- 
cian for his barbarities, his rule abhorred except for 

Daughter of Hyrcanus, — Alexandra (married to Alexander, executed 
by Herod). 

7. Children of Alexander and Alexandra, — Mariamne (wife of Herod) 
and Aristobulus (both put to death by Herod). 

8. Sons of Herod and Mariamne, — Alexander and Aristobulus (both 
put to death by Herod). 

9. Son of Aristobulus, — Herod Agrippa, who dies at Caesarea. 
(Acts xii. 23.) 

10. Son of Herod Agrippa, — King Agrippa, by whose death (A. D. 
100) the family becomes extinct. His sisters were Bernice and Dru- 
silla (the wife of Felix). 



332 THE MACCABEES. 

the comparative mercy he showed in the cities he had 
conquered, he died before the age of fifty, having 
done the one service of confirming the Jewish power 
upon the soil of Palestine. 

Alexandra, his widow, by the aid of the more 
popular party of the Pharisees, ruled nine years 
longer, without failing either of the good will or 
contentment of the people, troubled only by the re- 
bellion of her younger son, and died just after Herod 
the Great was born, — a man destined to be witness 
and agent of even greater changes than had yet be- 
fallen the state of Israel. 

It was just after the death of Alexandra that family 
dissensions grew into a civil war, which was not ended 
until Herod, by Roman favour, had confirmed his 
power on the ruins of every rival. The two sons of 
Alexander were Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. Hyr- 
canus, feeble and irresolute, was not reluctant to 
divide the dignity, by accepting the peaceable honours 
of the priesthood, and giving up the cares of power, 
with the weight of it, to his abler brother. But 
when an old quarrel was revived, by some measures 
taken to punish those concerned in the massacres of 
Alexander, the struggle grew so violent that Antipa- 
ter (or Antipas) the Idumaean, father of Herod, a 
bold and able officer of Alexander, easily persuaded 
Hyrcanus to put himself in his hands as rival king. 

This was the occasion that brought the irresistible 
Roman power to bear practically on the affairs of 
Judaea. Hyrcanus had fled to Petra, where he won 
the alliance of an Arab chief, and commenced an 
assault on Jerusalem. In this assault the city was 



JERUSALEM TAKEN BY POMPEY. 333 

so fiercely divided that a holy man, Onias, was stoned 
because he would not pray for the ruin of either 
party ; and when the besieged were in distress for 
want of victims to the sacrifice, the besiegers, prom- 
ising to gratify their religious scruple, sent them 
swine, which were drawn up in baskets to the city 
walls, and then dashed down in horror, amid the 
scoffs and jeers of the pagan troop.* But Pompey, 
the great and favourite general of the Roman Sen- 
ate, was now returning from the East in the full 
splendour of his conquest of Mithridates, and held 
his military court at Damascus. His general, Scau- 
rus, ordered the hostilities of the Jews to cease, sent 
back the troop of Arabs, and summoned both com- 
petitors to plead before Pompey himself. They came, 
each with rich gifts ; among them, from Aristobulus, 
a golden vine, valued at five hundred talents, wrought 
with wonderful art, exciting the amazement of the 
Romans at the wealth and skill of the obscure prov- 
ince. Aristobulus, resenting the arbitration, pro- 
ceeded to fortify himself again in Jerusalem. But 
the city was quickly reduced by Pompey, the Roman 
works of siege being unmolested on the Sabbath, 
and Judaea lay at the mercy of its offended allies. 
(B. C. 63.) 
Pompey, though insatiable of glory, was, by the 

* According to a Jewish story, Hyrcanus furnished the regular vic- 
tims to his brother at a fixed price, until some Greek in his camp con- 
vinced him that the city was impregnable so long as the sacrifices wore 
duly fulfilled, and he was induced to send a hog in place of a ram, 
whereat all the land of Judaea trembled ; whence the pious proverb, 
confounding in one curse those who hoist swine on windlasses with 
those who teach their sons the wisdom of the Greeks. 



334 THE MACCABEES. 

standard of antiquity, both enlightened and merciful. 
His curiosity was stayed by no Jewish scruple from 
penetrating as far as the secret shrine of the temple, 
which had been violated before him by no Pagan; 
and in this sacrilege Jewish superstition saw the rea- 
son of his speedy fall, and felt a sort of vindictive 
triumph when, fifteen years later, his corpse was cast 
out, headless and dishonoured, on the Egyptian shore. 
But, more lenient than any other invader, he now 
showed himself peaceable and friendly. Judaea had 
only to surrender power as the price of peace. He 
quieted the factions by which the country was mo- 
lested, repaired the ruins of temple and city, and left 
untouched the sacred treasure ; only extending the 
protectorate of Rome over the divided state, levying 
a fixed tribute to the Roman treasury, and incor- 
porating Judasa, as part of the province of Syria, 
within the widening bounds of the Republic. Many 
Jewish captives were carried to Rome, where they 
afterwards obtained civil rights, and became an im- 
portant part of the population. The boundaries of 
Palestine were narrowed, and the system of ruling 
and taxing the land by districts still further cramped 
the power of Jerusalem. The Roman arm kept down 
the rising insurrections among the chafing popula- 
tion. Aristobulus, and his sons Alexander and An- 
tigonus, after long disputing the dominion, were at 
length taken and put to death. A forced neutrality 
was kept among the various factions, and — except 
in such acts as the wanton pillage of the temple by 
Crassus, who carried off, it is said, not less than ten 
thousand talents — the foreign yoke was less disas- 
trous than the native anarchy. 



HEROD THE GREAT. 335 

Under the powerful protection of Rome the real 
authority came altogether into the hands of Antipa- 
ter, while the shadow of the regal dignity remained 
yet forty years with the incapable heir of the last 
native Jewish dynasty. Antipater was a popular and 
able governor ; and when the great Julius passed, 
after Pompey's death, through Syria to his conquest 
of Egypt, he won by his prompt and valiant aid un- 
usual favour from the Dictator, who made him a Ro- 
man citizen and Procurator of Judaea. He rebuilt 
the wall which Pompey had thrown down, restored 
quiet once more to the country, and established his 
two sons as local governors, Phasael at Jerusalem 
and Herod in Galilee. 

The worst consequence of so many years of vio- 
lence was now seen in troops of outlaws and bandits, 
who hid themselves in mountain glens and caverns, 
lived by plunder, and kept the land in perpetual 
alarm. It was in suppressing them that Herod, a 
young man of twenty-five, gave the first proof of that 
marked administrative ability which worthily won 
him the name of Great, while he roused a jealousy 
among the leading Jews nearly fatal to him at the 
very threshold of his career. Galilee was overrun 
and held in terror by a bold robber-chief, Hezekiah, 
who, after long holding out against every effort to 
capture him, was at length taken by Herod and im- 
mediately put to death, with all his troop. But the 
Sanhedrim, or great Council of Seventy, claimed to be 
the only tribunal with jurisdiction of life and death, 
and Herod was put on capital trial before them for 
his illegal stretch of power. His youth and fame, the 



336 THE MACCABEES. 

troops of his guard, with his brilliant equipment as 
victorious chief, and the confessed need of the service 
he had done, held the great council in check ; and 
while they paused, in doubt of using their authority 
upon so formidable a subject, the seasonable inter- 
vention of Sextus Caesar brought him off in safety. 
He escaped at night, by advice of. Hyrcanus, and 
submitted himself to the tribunal of Rome, which 
was too politic not to spare its ablest Eastern ally. 

From this time forth the career of Herod was as 
uniformly successful as it was wary and adventurous. 
Whether by politic boldness, or the persuasion of his 
eloquence, or by his personal presence, he never failed 
to be in favour with the dominant party in the long 
struggles of the expiring Republic. By the party of 
Caesar he was made general of the Syrian army ; by 
Cassius, one of the governors of Syria, which gave him 
power to avenge his father's and his brother's death ; 
by Antony, tetrarch, and by the Roman Senate, king. 
When Phasael was taken prisoner by the Parthians, 
and Antigonus was master of Judaea, he escaped with 
imminent hazard of his life, and was once hardly 
withheld from suicide ; then, going to Rome to plead 
the cause of his wife's young brother as heir of both 
Asmonaean houses, Augustus and Antony united in 
conferring the dignity on him. He never failed to 
suppress sedition, rebellion, or hostile intrigue. His 
bribes and persuasion made him a fast friend in An- 
tony, when a deputation of a hundred Jews sought to 
ruin him by their charges. Afterward, when Cleo- 
patra, angry at his rejection of her flatteries, was 
known to be his enemy, and eager to get his kingdom 



POPULAR ACTS OF HEROD. 337 

for her own, he went, at the hazard of his life, and 
prevailed with Antony over the blandishments of the 
Egyptian queen herself. 

The favour of the Jewish people he gained by in- 
terceding with the Roman commander, who won him. 
possession of Jerusalem, not to desecrate the temple, 
or leave him " master of a desert instead of a city," 
and afterwards by restoring to them their temple and 
worship in all their ancient splendour. He freed the 
land from desperate bands of outlaws, whom he slew in 
their dens, letting down armed men in chests swung 
from windlasses above ; and thus made even the 
remoter districts comparatively safe. Unscrupulous 
and implacable where his own jealousy or vengeance 
was concerned, he knew when to be heroic in act and 
daring, when to be merciful and generous in admin- 
istration. His taxes pressed lightly on the people in 
comparison with the weight of them elsewhere ; so 
that, to reconcile his munificence and economy, pop- 
ular report gave him access to fabulous treasures said 
to have been hidden in David's sepulchre. The 
splendour of his royal abodes, the restored temple at 
Jerusalem, the sumptuous festivals and magnificent 
games, the new city Sebaste, or Augusta, on the site 
of Samaria, the strongly defended seaport of Joppa, 
the marble docks and palaces of Csesarea, appealed 
powerfully to the people's religious or patriotic pride, 
and reconciled them for a time to the hated yoke of 
Edom. To allay the suspicions of the pious, the old 
temple was not demolished till the materials were all 
at hand for the new. The work was put in charge 
of priests, trained and clad as masons ; not the king 
15 v 



338 THE MACCABEES. 

himself would trespass on the boundaries of the 
sacred enclosure.* 

But his theatres and games, his spectacles of wild 
beasts and fights of gladiators, were a heathenish in- 
novation, " opposite to the Jewish notions," causing 
no small alarm and resentment among the people ; 
which was further increased by his lavish gifts to 
Gentile cities at their expense, and his politic erect- 
ing or adorning of pagan shrines. His flatterers 
claimed for him that he was of Hebrew stock, born 
of a house that had shared the first captivity. But 
in the popular heart these things proved him no true 
Israelite. His name represents the traditional hate 
of Edom to the house of Jacob, and to this day he is 
execrated as the man who did more than all to betray 
his nation and its faith to heathenism. 

Up to the moment of Antony's overthrow, Herod 
was his active and constant ally ; and was only pre- 
vented by his positive orders, to keep the Arabs in 
check on his own frontier, from staking his fortunes 
with him in the fatal sea-fight at Actium. When the 
great battle of empire was decided, he went without 
hesitation or any mark of fear before Augustus, laid 
aside his diadem, professed freely his services and 
attachment to Antony, and put his claim to favour 
on the ground of that fidelity he had shown so well 
against him who was now master of his fortune and 
life. Augustus held it more prudent to secure the 
gratitude than the ruin of so sagacious and bold a 

* According to the Jewish tradition, during eighteen months while 
it was in building, rain fell only at night, that the task might be undis- 
turbed. 



HEROD AND AUGUSTUS. 839 

man. Admiring his frank courage, he not only re- 
stored to Herod his regal dignity, but added to his 
dominion, making him free also of tribute, so that 
he had almost the state and power of an independ- 
ent prince. He was held by Augustus, says Jose- 
phus, second in love and honour only to Agrippa, 
and by Agrippa second only to Augustus. His 
skilful intercession procured for the Jews the de- 
gree of privilege which gave them afterwards so 
much importance among the inhabitants of Rome. 
His politic humanity saved numbers of them at his 
private cost from starvation, after the great disas- 
ter of the earthquake at his return to power. And 
his public administration shows, throughout, the 
most consummate skill in all the arts and meas- 
ures that could win at once the favour of his masters 
and his subjects. Eight years he had ruled as regent, 
or as most powerful among the chiefs of contending 
factions ; and for thirty-seven years he reigned under 
Augustus as undisputed king. 

Such was the career of splendid and uninterrupted 
success, often in the midst of the greatest personal 
peril, which won for Herod the title of Great, — a 
career darkly contrasted by his terrible domestic his- 
tory. His private character was treacherous, pas- 
sionate, and cruel. None were so near in blood or 
affection as to be safe from his remorseless jealousy. 
His own household was the scene of his guiltiest 
ambition and his darkest crimes. The queenly Mari- 
amne, granddaughter of both Hyrcanus and Aristo- 
bulus, unhappy heiress of her perished kindred, — 
the beautiful, proud woman whose hand allied his 



340 THE MACCABEES. 

fortunes with the last royal house of Judah, — fell a 
victim to his insane suspicion, or else his jealous 
hatred of her race, at the very moment of triumph 
that crowned his long career of perilous adventure. 
He had married her during the hazards of his early 
struggle for power, — perhaps from policy, to divide 
the popular regard with his rival Antigonus, her uncle, 
— and professed a passionate love to her. But it was 
a passion wayward and fierce, like the wild Edomite 
blood that ran in his veins ; and was turned to hate 
by the coldness she could not hide, and the jealousy 
that hunted all her family to death. Her brother 
Aristobulus he had made high-priest at the age of 
seventeen, — a youth of rare gentleness, grace, and 
beauty, and of no dangerous ambition, — and within 
a year had him treacherously drowned, in dread of 
the popular affection for his name. The old Hyr- 
canus himself, degraded from his priesthood, shorn 
of his ears by his nephew Antigonus, (which made 
him incapable of that dignity,) and living helpless 
among the female intrigues of Herod's court, he 
found occasion to put to death just at the moment 
when it was convenient to him to clear his ground 
of every rival, as he went to put his destiny in the 
hands of Augustus. 

Mariamne alone remained of the priestly and heroic 
line, deprived even of her sons, who were taken from 
her charge by Herod, that they might be watched by 
his spies and bred in Roman ways. Twice, when his 
fortune and life were hazarded in his intricate game 
of ambition, he had left orders, that in case he failed 
she should be at once put to death, — from jealous 



HEROD AND MARIAMNE. 341 

love, as the historian pretends, lest they should be 
parted even in the grave. Each time the secret order 
was betrayed to her, and made her excuse for the 
coldness of her welcome and her answer to his lavish 
professions of affection ; and each time the officer 
who guarded her — once, Herod's own uncle — paid 
with his life for the indiscretion. His sister Salome, 
a woman no less skilful in her plots than bitter in 
her animosities, still urged him on by false charges 
and suspicions, till, " entangled between hate and 
love," in a sudden tempest of passion, he command- 
ed that Mariamne should be beheaded, on an idle 
pretence that she had sought to poison him. Her 
womanly honour and queenly dignity were too proud 
and stainless to suffer the naming of any baser charge. 
So perished the last princess of the royal house of 
Judah, at the age of twenty-five, alone of all her 
kindred, forsaken and reproached at last even by 
her own mother, who had tempted her in vain to 
fly from the doomed and guilty house. In her 
death the last pure Hebrew blood of the Maccabees 
was shed, and the last bond of true loyalty was sev- 
ered that might have united king and people. De- 
ploring the fatal crime too late, with bitter and tem- 
pestuous remorse, Herod built for her monument 
a tower of stainless white marble, that made one of 
the strong defences of Jerusalem. 

An avenging Destiny pursued the house of Herod. 
His father had died by poison, at the hands of a man 
whose life he had just preserved. One brother per- 
ished in captivity ; one was slain in battle ; a third, 
whom he had banished in a fit of rage, and then la- 



342 THE MACCABEES. 

merited bitterly when he died, he found was already 
conspiring to give him poison. His household was 
distracted with miserable female intrigues and fatal 
quarrels. In his own sister and his wife's mother, 
Alexandra, met the deadliest antipathies of race and 
creed. Suspicion and treachery, insane jealousies 
and false charges, — such that among his own kin- 
dred he could certainly know neither conspirators nor 
friends, — were the dreadful judgment that followed 
this career of distempered passion and unscrupulous 
ambition. Master of others' lives, he never felt his 
own was safe. Remorse and dread provoked him to 
fresh acts of violence. The entire Sanhedrim, all 
but one man, he slew as partisans of Antigonus. At 
Jerusalem he entrenched himself in the impregnable 
tower of Antonia, employed bands of spies, and 
walked the streets in disguise, to detect the lurking 
disaffection among his subjects ; and he built castles 
for retreat in various quarters, garrisoned and fur- 
nished against the too possible contingency of civil 
war. Of his ten wives, one only he seemed really 
capable of loving, and her he murdered. Of his 
many children, one only, the brutal and bad Anti- 
pater, he trusted through all the changing and bloody 
fortunes of his house, sacrificing to his false charge 
the two loyal and popular sons of Mariamne ; and 
him he found guilty of conspiracy, arrested him at 
landing on his return from Augustus's court, and, as 
his last act of royal authority, put him to death in 
prison, — the only unpitied victim of his rage. The 
Gospel narrative echoes the tone of history in ascrib- 
ing to his suspicious tyranny the massacre of every 



DEATH OF HEROD. 843 

infant child in Bethlehem ; and the Jewish story was, 
that, resolving there should be sincere mourning at 
his death, he shut up in prison many of the most 
eminent men of the nation, with the ferocious order, 
happily disobeyed, that they should be put to death 
as soon as he was gone. Consumed by passion, 
frenzy, remorse, and the most horrible distemper, he 
closed, at the age of seventy, his long, brilliant, most 
successful, and most tragical career. 

With the life of Herod terminates the last chapter 
in the history of Israel as an independent power. 
We know henceforth only the petty principalities into 
which Palestine was divided by the Romans, and the 
dreary story of that oppression which ended in the 
utter ruin of nation and city. The sole interest 
which remains to the fallen fortunes of Judah is as 
an element in the great change impending in the 
religious destinies of mankind. For that political 
position which, through the fortunes of the Captivity, 
the theocratic colony, the desperate struggle of the 
Maccabees, and the glory and shame of the later 
monarchy, the Jews had been able to preserve, — 
surviving so many all but fatal shocks, and still 
bound by ties of ancient reverence and heroic memo- 
ries to the soil of Palestine, — had not, as in so many 
other cases, saved from perishing a mere form or 
shell of national existence. But as the city of Jeru- 
salem was itself a fortress, and guarded in its inte- 
rior citadel the sanctuary and sacred treasures of the 
Hebrew faith, so the nation of the Jews preserved to 
the destinies and uses of humanity a treasure of which 
only the experience of ages should declare the value. 



344 THE MACCABEES. 

The religious enthusiasm and obstinate fidelity of 
the Jews themselves shaped their own interpretation 
of their mission and destiny as the chosen people. 
The religious hopes of each great Oriental race or 
creed have all, more or less vaguely, taken form in 
the expectation of some clear revealing of God in hu- 
man life, or the advent of some glorified Messenger.* 
This expectation in the time of the earlier monarchy 
had found strong and fervent utterance in the He- 
brew prophecy. It gave Isaiah the assurance of 
victory in the great impending invasion of the Assyr- 
ians. It comforted Jeremiah at the gloomy eve of 
the captivity he foresaw. It remained with the exiles 
of the Euphrates, and made the most sacred pledge 
among the scattered colonists of Judah. At every 
critical season of the later history it reappeared ; 
now in the vivid visions of Daniel in time of terror 
and disaster, now in the calmer anticipation of sages 
and pious men in a season of peace, now in fanatic 
outbreak such as preceded the nation's final over- 
throw, now in the tone of reverence paid to a discreet 
ruler, as Simon the brother of Judas and Simon the 
Just, now in the base flattery with which a later party 
were forward to welcome the yoke and court the 
imperial favour of Rome. 

It is this that furnishes the thread of interior con- 
nection, and gives its vital significance to the later 
Hebrew history. The prophecy of ages cannot but 
work towards its own better interpretation and com- 
pleter fulfilment. The culmination of the Roman 
power, its almost boundless empire and almost un- 

* See Scholl, "Die Messias-Sagen des Morgenlandes." 



PREPARATIONS OF THE GOSPEL. 345 

broken peace, the new and near relations by which 
Judaea found itself drawn towards the culture, enter- 
prise, and customs of other nations, its helpless posi- 
tion in the arms of the great dominion, nay, that very 
sceptic and destructive process in which the Grecian 
intellect, preying upon itself, made more sensible the 
want of a living and universal faith, — all were so 
many stages of the preparation that led mankind to 
welcome a world-wide rendering of the Hebrew hope, 
and from the interior life of that ancient religious 
polity evolved the germ of a divine revelation to all 
ages. 

This final office, yet held in reserve to the race 
whose fortunes had been conducted through such 
vicissitude, makes the single remaining point to be 
regarded in the Hebrew history. But meanwhile 
another course of preparation for it has been going 
on, by the intimate contact and blending of the mind 
of East and West, — the interpretation of Jewish faith 
in the light of Grecian philosophy. No single ele- 
ment can effect the novel consummation. The relig- 
ious thought of humanity had had its nurture in the 
porch and groves of Greece as well as among the hills 
of Judah. And the later richer chapter of man's 
spiritual history might not be unfolded but by bring- 
ing together, in one living whole, all the separate 
results of so large and various a culture. 



15* 



XI. THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

THE three centuries before the Christian era — in- 
cluded in the preceding review — are memorable 
in the history of opinion, as defining almost the 
precise boundaries of the second or middle period 
of Grecian philosophy. In this regard they offer, be- 
sides, a very important chapter in the development 
of Jewish thought, and an indispensable -prepara- 
tion for the new Religion that was to spring from 
the seed yet abiding in the Hebrew faith. 

A glance, however slight, at the courses of specula- 
tion hitherto seems essential to a right understanding 
of the period at which we are now arrived. 

Without concealing the deceptive character of 
such generalizations, to those who accept them in- 
stead of the facts they are meant to interpret, we 
may divide the whole history of Grecian philosophy 
into three pretty nearly equal periods. In the first 
it was mainly a theory of Nature and Thought, and 
was summed up in its completest form by Aristotle, 
the teacher of Alexander. In the second it was 
mainly a theory of Life taught by the contending 
schools of Epicurus and Zeno, — the purely specula- 
tive element degenerating into an impotent scepti- 
cism. In the third it was mainly a theory of 



ORIGIN OF GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. 347 

Religion as taught by the later Platonists, springing 
from the same soil with the prevalent form of Chris- 
tian doctrine, and for three centuries disputing with 
it the intellectual sovereignty of the empire. This 
last belongs to the era of Christian history, and need 
not be considered here. It is with the second period 
that we are chiefly concerned. 

The history of free thought among the Greeks 
begins as early as that of free institutions. Thales, 
the " father of philosophy," was of the same age 
with Solon. (B. C. 600.) Among the disasters and 
troubles that befell the little Ionic league of states 
in their collision with the Persian monarchy, he took 
a citizen's share in the public defence, and his 
accurate observation of nature enabled him to fore- 
stall popular terror by predicting an eclipse. Al- 
though, in harmony with the mind of the age, the 
universe, as he regarded it, was " full of gods," he 
was yet sceptical as to that poetic creed which 
explained the groups of natural phenomena by its 
mythic genealogies ; and vaguely but boldly he 
sketched the outline of a philosophy of nature, 
which made the point of departure of the famous 
Ionic school, that embraced the best intellect of 
Greece down to the time of Socrates. Almost 
contemporary with his protest, Pythagoras and 
Xenophanes took their departure from the dominant 
creed, each projecting in his own style a philosophy 
of thought. And thus, in the sixth century before 
Christ, among the earlier movements of the little 
Hellenic states and colonies, began the independent 
growth of speculation which accompanied the event- 



348 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

fill course of Grecian political history in a parallel 
but separate channel of its own. 

The three original streams, scientific, mystic, and 
dialectic, found their way to Athens in the time 
of her short-lived empire, and were there blended 
into one. Anaxagoras, the illustrious friend of Peri- 
cles, first indicated the great division-line among the 
objects of philosophy, by marking the antithesis 
of Mind and Matter. Though the irritable sus- 
picion of the popular faith denounced these novel- 
ties, — though his own life was hardly spared, and 
his pupil, Socrates, perished through the resentment 
roused by his unsparing attack of prevailing fallacies 
and superstitions, — yet peace was easily made with 
the forces of a decayed mythology. Plato followed 
out unmolested, in his master's name, the minute 
and weary analysis of his famous Dialogues, and 
draped the baldness of his speculations in the fanci- 
ful garb of myths that charmed the Attic taste. 
Aristotle, who came as a proud and sensitive boy to 
learn in the school of this splendid aristocrat of 
thought, speedily made himself master of all that 
Greek science and speculation had accomplished 
hitherto ; he extended prodigiously both the bound- 
aries of observation and the scope of mental analy- 
sis ; and projected a " Philosophy of the Empire '' 
which the ancient world was never able to outgrow, 
and which holds its mastery in modern schools, in 
some regards, even to this day. 

Such is a slight outline of what was effected in 
rather less than three centuries, in the creative pe- 
riod of Grecian philosophy. So far as a true theory 



THE SECOND PEBIOD. 349 

of Nature and Thought is concerned, Aristotle speaks 
for us the last word of antiquity. The history of 
pure speculation after his day shows a steady declen- 
sion into the vanity of barren jargoning and the 
helplessness of an intellectual scepticism. The spe- 
cial sciences of Mathematics and Astronomy were 
cultivated, indeed, with brilliant success, in the later 
schools of Greece. Euclid and Hipparchus rank 
highest in a long list of eminent names that adorn 
the Institute established by Ptolemy in his splendid 
capital. But, besides this success in the analytic and 
inductive sciences, the most marked intellectual fea- 
ture of the second period was seen in the philosophy 
of Life held by the sects of Epicureans and Stoics. 
As these are both strongly characteristic of the age 
we are now considering, — its moral as well as its 
intellectual estate, — it will be well to set them forth 
a little more in detail.* They are of the more inter- 
est to us, since the first conflict of intellectual Pagan- 
ism with living Christianity took place when Paul the 
Apostle being at Athens, " certain philosophers of 
the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him." 

When the search for Truth seemed to have been 
exhausted, and there remained only the barren in- 
dustry of analysis and erudition, the search next 
instituted was for the " sovereign Good," or the right 
practical philosophy of Life. The first consistent 
answer was given by Epicurus, whose age falls im- 
mediately after that of Aristotle. The sovereign 
good, he said, is Happiness. Pleasure is good : we 
need not go behind it to ask why or how. Virtue is 

* Taken partly from Hitter's excellent account. 



350 THE ALEXANDKIANS. 

good: for it adds to our sum total of enjoyment. 
Quietness and peace are good : for they put us out 
of the way of pain. So liberal is Nature, and so 
clearly does she exhibit this as the true end of life, 
that once remove the positive cause of pain and she 
finds the enjoyment of her own accord. With a 
bodily system in good repair, we may be passive 
recipients of her prodigal benevolence. 

Not that we have the Author of Nature in especial 
to thank for this, he said. We do not deny that there 
is such a Being ; we will not cross swords with the 
popular belief as to so remote a matter of mere spec- 
ulation. But we cannot suppose that the Divine 
Being (one or many) can interest himself in the 
cares and destinies of men. He is apart and at 
peace with himself, — a type of that blissful uncon- 
cern which the wise man will seek to attain on earth. 
But the popular fear of God as an Avenger of guilt 
and Judge of men, or of the Future as a scene of 
retribution possibly capricious or vindictive, dis- 
turbs and harasses us. By all means the fears of 
Superstition should be done away. Did not Aga- 
memnon, said Lucretius, sacrifice his own daughter 
to the Deity that withheld the prospering breeze ? 

" Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum ! " 

The soul is but the finer essence or tissue of the 
bodily organization : it dissolves with the dissolving 
frame, or fleets away like mist.* Why should we 
fear Death ? If it is annihilation, we shall not feel 
it ; if a new mode of life, then it is not death. " If 

* See Lucretius, passim. 



EPICUREANISM. 351 

we are, it is not ; if it is, we are not ; when it comes 
we feel it not, for it is the end of all feeling ; and 
what can give no pain when it is here should give no 
dread when it is far off." 

Meanwhile, it is a temperate and serene enjoyment 
the wise man will seek ; not extravagant, violent, or 
injurious to others. The pleasures of the mind are 
far above those of sense. The wise man is superior 
to the shocks of fortune : in lingering sickness there 
is more to enjoy than suffer ; in torture even, mem- 
ory and hope may continue undisturbed. Luxury is 
not essential : there are limits to all things ; pleasure 
must be economized ; those most enjoy luxury who 
have least need of it. Why should a man quarrel 
with circumstances, or stand in fear of laws or men 
or destiny ? In himself is the real source of happi- 
ness. His moral liberty has just this field of exer- 
cise : he can adapt himself to the state of things ; he 
can acquiesce. Let him make the best of his lot. 
Let him seek the solace of private friendship : " a 
true friend can trust a true friend ; " and in philos- 
ophy he will find " an activity that procures a happy 
life." 

This pleasant and plausible style of ethics reflects 
well the average mind of an age when the state was 
crumbling and the ancient civilization verging to- 
wards decay ; when foreign conquerors allowed no 
hope to political ambition; when the sacredness of 
antique Art was degraded, so as to minister to per- 
sonal luxury instead of public reverence ; when the 
circle of ancient knowledge and faith was run, and a 
pedantic scepticism had taken hold of the mind of 



352 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

studious men ; when there was neither moral sym- 
pathy to comprehend the noble life and death of 
Socrates, nor intellectual grasp to retain the stores 
of thought treasured by his great disciples ; when 
there was not as yet developed a religion of Life, that 
should gather up what was noblest of that thought, 
and make of it a doctrine of practical and vital good- 
ness. In such a period of pause, of moral degener- 
acy and intellectual decline, Epicurus lived out, on 
the whole, worthily and well the precepts of his 
code, — harmless, prudent, reasonable, praiseworthy 
in comparison with the dull or ferocious level of a 
vulgar life ; but destitute of faith or living energy, 
"having no hope, and without God in the world." 
He taught it from boyhood up, and lived by it to old 
age. It gave him such resource and solace as he 
craved. He gathered about him attached and affec- 
tionate friends. His school was a proverb for good- 
will and harmony ; his writings a great bulk of easy, 
good-humoured exposition of his very superficial 
views of nature, mind, and morals, plain to under- 
stand, provoking no debate ; and he died at upwards 
of seventy, bequeathing his pleasant gardens as the 
school to teach his cheerful theory of life to all com- 
ing time. But the school dishonoured the master. 
The inevitable tendency became a notorious fact. 
The garden of Epicurus is better known to us by its 
stern Miltonic designation of " Epicurus' sty." 

It was from his contemporary, Zeno, that the an- 
tagonistic school of Stoics, or the Porch, began. He 
was a man of feeble health, austere manners, severe 
and melancholy temper, who sought consolation in 



STOIC DOCTRINE. 353 

philosophy for the utter wreck of his fortune at an 
early age. His stern, practical aim was to set the 
mind above the risk and change of life, upon the im- 
pregnable heights of Virtue. The two schools were 
developed side by side, and kept pace with one 
another through all the succeeding generations of 
pagan thought. The statement of Epicurus, that 
happiness is the whole aim of life, including virtue, 
was met by Zeno with the nobler counter statement, 
that virtue is the whole aim of life, including happi- 
ness. It was a severe and masculine morality he 
taught. Not love or pity, any more than fear or 
enjoyment, did he suffer to be a wise man's motive, 
— no love but that high, unimpassioned love to be 
bestowed alike on friends and enemies. Virtue, he 
said, is inexorable law, — law as strict as that fol- 
lowed by the stars in their courses, or in the growth 
of plants. Duty is the distinguishing and noble 
instinct of man. It is a sentiment primitive, inex- 
plicable, inalienable, as much as the instinct of hun- 
ger or the care of its young in every creature. We 
cannot go behind it ; we may not go against it. All 
wisdom he would reduce to virtue, all philosophy 
to a practical and religious common sense. 

The great thought of God as universal Law lay at 
the bottom of his creed of ethics ; of God as the life- 
giving * and indwelling Word of his system of physics. 
Man's happiness, he said, is in the free unfolding of 
his mental life, the primitive instinct of right being 
developed according to reason and conscience. There 
is a crisis in the interior life, — a moment when the 

* (TTrepfxaTLKos. 



854 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

dim reason awakes and asserts its supremacy, and 
thenceforward there can be no neutrality. A moral 
antithesis, inherent in the very nature of things, 
brings the strict alternative. A man chooses right 
or wrong, honour or baseness, good or ill ; and the 
whole of his life afterwards is but the acting out of 
the choice of that moment. Hence, morally speak- 
ing, all men are ranked in two great classes. There 
is no middle ground. All virtues are on one level ; 
all vices and crimes on another level. No allowance 
for human weakness, none for the pressure of cir- 
cumstance. The one problem of life is to make the 
divine Reason paramount and supreme. " Lead 
me," said Cleanthes, " where I am commanded of 
thee to go, that I may follow without backwardness ; 
but though, becoming base, I should not consent, 
yet none the less shall I follow thee." "He is a 
bad soldier," said Seneca, " who follows his general 
reluctantly : let us receive our leader's commands 
with cheerfulness, and execute them with alacrity ; 
and never desert the path marked out for us because 
perplexed with difficulties. He has a truly great mind 
who surrenders himself wholly to God." " God" — 
so runs the Stoic doctrine — " is the eternal Reason 
that governs the universe and pervades all things ; 
the beneficent Providence that taketh care of all as 
well as of each ; the foundation of that natural Law 
which commands the right and forbids the wrong. 
He punishes the violation of the law, and rewards 
the right ; he is perfect in himself, and possessed of 
perfect blessedness." 

The practical doctrine of the Porch was equally 



STOIC ETHICS. 355 

austere and high. " The duty we owe to others is to 
love all, even our enemies. A good man will love his 
neighbour from his heart, and take pleasure in pro- 
tecting and serving him. He will not think himself 
born for himself alone, but for the common good of all ; 
and will be good to all according to his opportunity. 
The consciousness of well-doing is ample reward for 
him ; though he have no witness of his deeds, and re- 
ceive no applause or recompense. He will relieve the 
sick, aid the shipwrecked, protect the stranger, or sup- 
ply the hungry with food ; but with a cheerful counte- 
nance, disdaining all sorrow arising from sympathy, 
as well as that from personal suffering. The poor, 
weak, and slaves are his special charge. The wise 
man alone is free, or rich, or of a sound mind ; in 
truth, the only sovereign." 

The noblest phrases of Christian ethics are bor- 
rowed from the Stoics. St. Paul before the Areopa- 
gus quotes one of their religious hymns. There is 
no exceeding their maxims of severe, uncompromising 
virtue. They taught them earnestly too. Cleanthes 
toiled by night in drawing water and grinding meal, 
that he might be at liberty to teach by day. Oarne- 
ades seized the occasion of an embassy to Rome to 
plant the doctrine in what would be the capital of the 
world. Seneca insisted on its precepts in the court 
of Nero, in language which, for earnest morality and 
intelligent piety, is rarely excelled : and it has been 
a favourite opinion with many, and not unlikely, that 
he was secretly a disciple of the Apostle Paul. 

Such, in its nobler aspect, was the character of 
that celebrated protest against the degeneracy of 



356 THE ALEXANDKIANS. 

ancient thought and life. But as a means of really 
escaping from the degradation it deplored, it was 
lame and ineffectual. It had no visible centre and 
rallying-point of faith ; no organization of the senti- 
ment of virtue. It had no word of mercy to those ■" that 
labour and are heavy laden ;" no deliverance to offer 
men from the base condition it assumed them to have 
freely chosen. Manual toil it scorned as slavish, ex- 
cept what was barely needful to maintain the higher 
life ; all care for health as effeminate and base. All 
tender charities it forgot or crowded out of sight. It 
laid no broad hold upon the sympathies of men, but 
remained the exclusive possession of a few, — aristo- 
crats and monopolists of virtue. With these, the 
boastful love of all the world, friends and enemies 
alike, would most likely dwindle to a sterile philan- 
thropism. It demanded an impossible flight to re- 
gions of airy excellence, to which it pointed the way, 
but furnished no motive force. 

With many it thus became a vain theory and bar- 
ren declamation, — the mere heroics and rhodomon- 
tade of virtue.* There was no attempt to reconcile 
the empty and vague ideal with obstinate fact. 
Hence the theory itself became arbitrary and capri- 
cious. All the extravagances which Antinomian 
fanatics have permitted to the Elect the Stoics said 
could belong -harmlessly to their perfect man. For 
him, no need of the distinction of virtues and crimes. 
In his soul was the transmuting principle that ren- 
dered all alike holy : he could innocently do what by 
the common measure would be gross wickedness, — 

* As in Cicero's hollow " Paradoxes." 



DEFECT OF STOICISM. — PYRRHONISM. 357 

an assertion harmless only because impracticable, 
since none could hope to reach that state. Such a 
theory was but an impotent and vain protest against 
an aggressive moral scepticism, a frail barrier against 
a tide of dissoluteness and sophistry. It grew to a 
stern and deepening gloom in the sincere, to empty 
rhetoric in more artificial and superficial minds. It 
is a dreary commentary on this ethically noblest phi- 
losophy of the pagan world, that the founder of it 
himself, and three whose names stand high as any 
among his followers, died by /their own hands.* Con- 
tempt of death was the final refuge of Stoic virtue, — 
not that which strengthens a man to endure life to 
the uttermost, and keep to the last the post which 
Providence has assigned, but that which overleaps 
unshrinking the awful brink, to brave the unsolved 
secret of Eternity. 

For about three hundred years the two philosophic 
creeds, or theories of life, were on trial before the 
world. Whatever we have found plausible in one or 
noble in the other, they lent but a treacherous founda- 
tion to any positive system of truth or practical style 
of morals. The speculative philosophy, meanwhile, 
characteristic of the period, is that of a complete and 
absolute Scepticism, — sometimes daintily eclectic, as 
with the " New Academy " of dilettante Platonists, 
sometimes bald and unqualified in its dogmas of un- 
certainty. Its creed was, that " Nothing can be cer- 
tainly known, either by sensation or reflection." Its 

* Zeno, Cleanthes, Cato, Brutus. " The wise man lives while he 
ought, not while he can," says Seneca. (Epist. lxx., which argues at 
length the pros and cons of suicide.) 



358 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

maxim was, " I must assert nothing, not even this, 
that I assert nothing ; " and that " to every assertion 
one may be opposed of equal weight, as it seems to 
me." This phrase must qualify every proposition. 
All science is unsettled by a universal If. ' The cor- 
responding practical doctrine was absolute indififer- 
entism, and universal compromise. Common sense 
revenged itself on the founder of this insolent and 
mocking creed by inventing tales of his absurd con- 
sistency with it in practice ; saying that his friends 
had to rescue him from being run over by what he 
would regard as phantom-carriages, and to snatch 
him from plunging over the brink of precipices which 
his theory ignored. But thought was too far divorced 
from life to seek or demand consistency. Pyrrho 
himself was a priest of the faith he undermined ; and 
lived in honour and esteem to a great old age. 

Indeed, scepticism at this period was not so much 
a fault of intellect or will, as the symptom of a chronic 
mental malady. The harvest of ancient metaphysics 
was reaped, and yielded no bread-corn to the hungry 
mind. 

" The intellectual power through words and things 
Went sounding on, — a dim and perilous way." 

The studious toil of centuries had availed to lay no 
impregnable foundation of truth. Natural science 
was still in its early rudiments. It could neither 
grasp the universe as a whole, nor check the vagaries 
of speculation, nor suggest to the philosopher a con- 
sistent theory of life on the basis of unalterable fact. 
The conception of law was but an impotent general- 
ization, a sterile name. The ancient belief in the 



SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM. 359 

sovereign sway of gods had become the doctrine of a 
fatal and blind Destiny.* A vague religious instinct 
protested vainly against the blank of unbelief. As 
the fortunes of the world were drawn more and more 
within the embrace of one gigantic Empire, all the 
more deeply was felt the craving for a unity of belief, 
for one philosophic and religious creed, to define the 
faith of the future. The general growth of mind, 
and the loss of enterprise and stimulus in the pur- 
suits of life, made the religious want more deeply 
felt just when it was farthest from being satisfied. 
Metaphysical speculation had done its utmost ; but, 
spell-bound as it were, and held by a sort of fatality, 
it but plunged into deeper darkness at every step. 
It became at best a dreamy transcendentalism, a bar- 
ren sublimation of thought, hair-splitting dialectics 
about the divine nature and spiritual things, — which 
Oriental mysticism tended more and more to sep- 
arate from the natural world as impure and base. 
The great problem of existence, human and divine, 
was solved by limitless negation ; and the human 
mind confessed itself incompetent to meet with a res- 
olute affirmative the simplest question as to morals 
or belief or destiny. 

Prom Scepticism so radical and entire the natural 
reaction at once, and the readiest escape, is Mysti- 
cism, — its " positive phase," as it lias been called. f 
This cuts the knot of negation, and assumes the point 
of view of faith. A speculative answer to the great 

* This alteration in the old mythology is best set forth by Comte, 
" Philosophic Positive," Vol. V. pp. 277-279. 
t Zeller. 



360 THE ALEXANDKIANS. 

Doubt that now invaded the ancient mind might well 
be despaired of : a religious answer alone could meet 
the malady at the root. Philosophy had already set 
the Deity at a distance from the system of things as 
conceived by the intellect ; and the conscience, moved 
by the degradation of the time, took pleasure in mag- 
nifying this distance, — insisting on man's inability 
to know Him without a mediator, or maligning the 
world of matter which His hand had wrought. A posi- 
tive and vital faith once given, to blend with the in- 
tellectual material so richly stored, one way of refuge 
seemed open from the doom to which the most culti- 
vated intellect of the age was hastening. Such was 
the motive by which the ever busy and inquiring sa- 
gacity of the Greeks was drawn towards those Oriental 
systems of belief, which at this precise point of time 
offered themselves in Alexandria. A chapter of ex- 
traordinary interest is thus opened in the history of 
the human mind. Two separate courses of religious 
speculation present themselves, — one, developed into 
the New Platonism, which was an euthanasy of the 
expiring beliefs of paganism ; the other taking the 
direction which we have now to follow. 

When Alexander the Great founded his stately 
capital on the Delta, it was with the political and 
commercial view of making it the imperial city of 
the world. Ptolemy, who in the fourfold division 
received this southern portion of his empire, sought 
further to make it " the metropolis of science, the 
asylum of letters, and sanctuary of light." Alexan- 
dria became " the great Hellenic city, centre of the 
commerce of three continents, the common shelter 



ALEXANDRIA. 361 

of letters and the arts," — " the crown of all cities." 
When Physco passed his decree of exile, says Athe- 
naeus, he " filled cities and islands with grammarians, 
philosophers, geometers, musicians, painters, teachers, 
doctors, and many other professions." Prom Alex- 
andria, it was said, are all teachers among Greeks 
and barbarians. Every population and every faith 
was free to share its ample and cosmopolitan domain. 
Both Grecian and Egyptian gods had been honoured 
with temples by its founder. Oriental mysticism and 
Western culture met in the equal hospitality of its 
schools.* As the political power of Greece declined, 
her intellectual eminence continued undisputed here ; 
and long after Christianity ruled the world from the 
imperial throne of Byzantium, the stately temple of 
Serapis remained, as the last citadel of the perishing 
culture and creed of Paganism. 

In this splendid Grecian capital, that spread its 
broad crescent on the Mediterranean shore, the an- 
cient faith of Israel came once more in contact with 
remote and strange elements ; and here, as in Baby- 
lon, while retaining its own strong vitality, it lost 
something of its intrinsic character, and adopted the 
tone of foreign thought. In the saying of the Jews, 
their nation was dispersed in three " Captivities." 
Babylon, Palestine, and Egypt were three several 
centres or homes, having each its spiritual chief, its 
own style of culture, and a development of the relig- 
ious tradition peculiar to itself. While the Babylon- 
ian Jews were busied with the eccentric frivolities 
afterwards embodied in the Talmud, while those of 

* See Simon, also Matter, " Histoire de Vkcole d'Alexandrie." 
16 



362 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

Palestine were defending tneir hard-won independ- 
ence, or nourishing political ambitions and dreams 
of vengeance, the Alexandrians were eager to enjoy 
the advantage of the great metropolis of Western 
thought. While with the first the Hebrew Messianic 
hope was overwrought with fables of a fantastic Par- 
adise, — while with the second it became the goad 
of enterprises as vindictive and fierce as they were 
fruitless, — with the last it was blended with the no- 
bler speculations, and interpreted in the philosophic 
phrases of the Grecian schools. Loyal as ever in their 
national belief, they clung to the persuasion that theirs 
was from of old the one chosen people and interpreter 
of God to the whole earth. Their sacred books they 
held to be the peculiar and direct gift of God. How- 
ever alien from the old Hebrew faith their new style 
of interpretation, they followed without suspicion of 
heresy the fashion of the day, in their metaphysical 
refinements and allegorical fancies. Heretics and 
aliens by the jealous judgment of those who ruled the 
synagogue at Jerusalem and in the estimate of mod- 
ern Jews, they doubtless regarded themselves as the 
true and orthodox expounders of the Old Testament 
creed. To the angry horror of those who held that 
there could be only one centre of worship, and that 
Zion was the true religious home of every pious 
Hebrew, these latitudinarian dissenters embraced in 
good faith the regal hospitality tendered them. To 
the number of at least a million, they became natu- 
ralized in the soil of Egypt. They had their own 
temple at Leontopolis, — a deserted shrine of Bubas- 
tis, granted them, not without a heathen's jest at the 



THE SEPTUAGINT. 363 

transfer, by Ptolemy. They had their own Sanhedrim 
of seventy " elders," for whom " seventy golden arm- 
chairs " were set in the great synagogue at Alexan- 
dria ; they had their independent religious literature, 
and their own Greek version of the sacred Scriptures. 
This last — the celebrated version of the Seventy 
— was their peculiar religious treasure, and was 
looked on through a halo of marvellous tradition, 
that made it of equal sanctity and authority with the 
Hebrew original, which indeed few of them could 
read.* Its preparation, it was said, was intrusted to 
seventy learned men, — or seventy-two, six to repre- 
sent each tribe, — who were sent in sacred embassy 
from Jerusalem at the king's express command. f To 
save noise and interruption in their task, they were 
placed on a little island, where they might be in pres- 
ence of " those elements only whose creation they 
should describe," and where nothing might be heard 
save the solemn murmur of the sea ; and here each 
,in a separate room, or groups of seven each, prepared 
a copy of the entire Scripture, which was completed 
in seventy-two days. And so manifest was the Divine 
hand in this work, that when the seventy copies came 
to be compared, not a word or syllable was found to 
vary 4 

* Philo, it is well known, argues on the significance of Hebrew names 
from Greek roots. 

t About B. C. 280. 

X Among the characteristic variations of the LXX. from the Hebrew 
text are the following : The substitution of " Lord " for " Jehovah " 
throughout, generally followed in the modern versions ; " God perceived 
that he had made man, and considered" (Gen. vi. 6) ; "I appeared to 
Abraham, etc., as their God" (Ex. vi. 3) ; "The elders saw the place 
where the God of Israel stood " (Ex. xxiv. 10) ; c * He set the bounds 



364 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

Thus early were the numerous colonists from 
Judaea naturalized in Egypt, making it the adopted 
home of their religion, long before the time when 
the Jews of Palestine were engaged in their life-and- 
death struggle with Antiochus. In the main, though 
at first forced colonists, they were treated with 
favour and indulgence. They occupied two of the 
five municipal districts of Alexandria, and in Cyrene 
made the predominant part of the population. It 
was a saying, that " he who has not seen the syna- 
gogue at Alexandria has not seen that which is most 
beautiful." So vast was the size of it, that " during 
service it was necessary to appoint a special officer, 
who, by the raising and waving of a banner, should 
at the proper time give a signal to the congregation 
to respond." 

With that cosmopolitan feeling which in exiles 
often takes the place of a narrower patriotism, the 
Jews of Alexandria craved intercourse and instruc- 
tion in the literary and philosophic schools of the 
Greeks. The celebrated Museum, or Institute, found- 
ed by the enlightened Ptolemy Philadelphus, did 

of the nations according to the number of his angels " (Deut. xxxii. 8), 
— these being supposed to be seventy, and the Law proclaimed on 
Sinai being divided into as many voices and tongues ; " From his hand 
went forth angels with him " (Deut. xxxiii. 2) ; " The Gods of the na- 
tions are Damions" (Ps. xcvi. 5), — a favourite argument of the Alex- 
andrians, in their interpreting between Greek and Jewish thought. Of 
twelve theophanies of the Old Testament, eight are so translated as to 
disguise the visible appearance of Jehovah, while the rest may be taken 
as vision or allegory. The Messiah, as a pre-existing divine power, 
(Dan. vii. 13,) is easily made the Revealer of the Old Testament. See 
Gfrorer ("Philo," etc.) and Dahne. Respecting the value of this ver- 
sion to the Grecian public, see an Essay of De Quincey on the " Word 
signifying Eternal." 



PHILOSOPHY AND ALLEGORY. 365 

not admit them on equal terms to its privileges ; but 
excepting this, there was no bar to the most liberal 
interchange of thought. The Greeks, following the 
fashion of the day, eagerly sought among Oriental 
races signs of that sacred tradition, a purer religious 
light, whose home to their fancy lay in the far East ; 
and the Jews on their part were both delighted and 
astonished at the novel speculations of the Greeks as 
to the divine order of the universe, the Kosmos, and 
the inscrutable nature of the Deity. The infinite 
and unchangeable One, the perfect Good, the essential 
Reason, the divine and universal Life, they were not 
slow to identify with the Jehovah revealed in their 
own sacred books. They readily seized on the tra- 
ditions current among the philosophical sects, to 
prove that Pythagoras and Plato, who were said 
to borrow their doctrine from the East, must have 
found it in the Hebrew Scriptures, and that Moses 
was the true father of Grecian philosophy. 

The Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, 
was interpreted into an enormous scheme of sym- 
bolism, or allegory, "the natural fruit of a men- 
tal revolution." The " Word of Jehovah," which 
in the Hebrew writings expresses, with a vague 
sublimity, the active agency of the Creator, was 
identified with the indwelling or " seminal " reason 
of the Stoics,* — in whose stern protest against 
effeminacy the Jews found many points of attrac- 
tion and sympathy, as formerly in the austere ritual 

* " The Stoics teach an essential, the Alexandrian Jews and Neo- 
Platonists only a dynamic immanence of God in the world." — Zeller, 
' 4 Philosophie der Griechen," Vol. III. p. 493. 



366 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

of the Persians. This divine Reason, or living Word 
of God, was spoken of as God's own Son, and as 
Father or Creator of the Universe.* The Jews were 
a nation of priests, agents, and interpreters of the Di- 
vine Word, intercessors with the Almighty in behalf 
of the creation.f The high-priest in his prayers 
interceded for the elements ; and his sacred robes 
were a symbol of the visible universe. J The Divine 
Word, they held, is a perpetual Mediator, through 
whom the world is continually reconciled to God. 
It is " the first of angels, the Archangel of many 
names ; " the first-born Son of God ; the atoning 
Mediator, or High-priest, in behalf of mankind ; 
present in the creation from the beginning, but 
first revealed to the Jews through Moses. § Adopt- 
ing the doctrine of the Platonists, they further 
identified the Divine Word with the realm of eternal 
Ideas, existing from the beginning in the mind of 
God ; and hence, as his executive Agent in the work 
of creation, — the three advocates with God being 
the Divine mercy, the piety of the Fathers, and 
repentance. 

Such is the somewhat vague and undiscriminated 
circle of theological ideas got by blending the con- 

*■ The personal view of the Logos was earlier in Alexandria, says 
Gfrorer, than the philosophical ; and the term was introduced as the 
masculine equivalent of the feminine Sophia, or Wisdom. (Compare 
Prov. viii. 30.) 

t Dorner, " Lehre von der Person Christi," Vol. I, Introduction. 

J Wisdom of Solomon xviii. 24. So Philo says : " The high-priest 
is the Word, which putteth on the world as a garment." — De Profugis, 
p. 466 (Frankfort folio of 1691). 

§ Philo, Quis Hceres,\>. 509 ; and Confusio Linguarum, p. 341. 



EARLIER WRITERS. — WISDOM OF SOLOMON. 367 

ceptions of several Grecian schools, especially the 
Platonist and Stoic, with the religious language of 
the Old Testament. It is the longing for a universal 
religion, expressed in the terms of a limited and pe- 
culiar creed. It is a style of thought often incon- 
sistent with itself, still more often unintelligible or 
incoherent to a modern mind ; yet highly character- 
istic of that age, and indispensable to be known in 
studying, not only the " preparations of the Gospel," 
but the gradual development also of the Christian 
doctrine itself.* 

The first traces of this blending of two elements 
seemingly so incongruous are found as early as in 
the Alexandrian version of the Seventy. Of Aris- 
tobulus (B. 0. 150), a Jew of considerable eminence, 
we know little more than that he first directly as- 
serted the Hebrew origin of Greek philosophy ; and 
that his exposition of Homer and the Orphic poets, 
as well as the Old Testament, was in violent con- 
formity with this idea.f And it was in the hands of 
Aristeas, a little later, that the miracle of the Septua- 
gint came into its present and popular form. 

The " Wisdom of Solomon," an apochryphal book 
of uncertain date, is the most complete and interest- 
ing exhibition of this colouring of Jewish by Grecian 
thought. God (to quote the new religious phrase- 

* For the several contributions to that development, Stoic, Plato- 
nist, and Jewish, see Vacherot, " Histoire Critique de T^cole d'Alex- 
andrie." 

t See Zeller and Gfrorer. The following specimen of his theology 
is preserved to us : " God never ceases to create ; but as it is the 
nature of fire to burn and of snow to be cold, so of God to create, and 
much more, since he is the source of activity to all." 



368 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

ology) is " the lover of souls, whose incorruptible 
spirit is in all things." His spirit " filleth the world, 
and that which containeth all things hath knowledge 
of the voice." His " almighty Word leaped down 
from heaven, out of his royal throne, as a fierce man 
of war." Wisdom is " a breath of the power of God, 
a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Al- 
mighty ; in all ages, entering into holy souls, she 
maketh them friends of God, and prophets." " God 
created man to be immortal, and made him to be an 

image of his own eternity The souls of the 

righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall 
no torment touch them ; for though they be punished 
in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immor- 
tality." " The thoughts of mortal men are miserable, 
and their devices but uncertain ; for the corruptible 
body presseth down the soul, and the earthly taber- 
nacle weigheth down the mind that museth on 
many things : " but " incorruption maketh us near 
to God."* 

This style of thought shows already traces of an 
asceticism quite foreign to the true Hebrew doctrine, 
and most nearly allied whether to the practices of the 
far East, or to the sentiments of the Stoics. It is as 
if the language of their protest were taken in good 
faith, and made the practical rule of life among some 
sects that now appear on this Egyptian soil, so fertile 
in all extravagances of religious doctrine. Of these, 
the most noted are the Tlierapeutce, a body of Jewish 
monks, — men sharing the religious and mental cul- 

* Wisdom of Solomon, xi. 26 ; xii. 1 ; i. 7 ; xviii. 15 ; vii. 25, 27 ; 
ii. 23; iii. 1, 4; ix. 14, 15 ; vi. 19. 



THEBAPEUT^. 369 

ture of the time, but devoted to the most rigid aus- 
terity of celibate and monastic life.* In each dwelling 
was a private chapel or " monastery." Their relig- 
ious exercises were frequent ; their Sabbath scrupu- 
lously kept. Their only common worship was a 
banquet and sacred dance on the seventh day, — a 
dramatic commemoration of the Passover and pas- 
sage of the Red Sea.f Their food was of bread, salt, 
and herbs, their drink only water, like the later 
Christian monks, with frequent fasts of three or 
even six days. Slavery among them was held to 
be " against nature," and strictly forbidden. Their 
name, which signifies Healers, or attendants on the 
sick, denotes either their religious charities, or their 
office of healing the diseases of the soul. The body 
they regarded as a prison, and the ground of all 
evil they held to reside in Matter. A visionary and 
impassioned ecstasy was their way of access to divine 
energies, and their method of prophetic inspiration. 
Hence their maceration and austerities ; and hence 
the fervours of their mystical piety. They carried to 
its greatest extent the new doctrine of mediation 
through the divine Spirit, or living Word of God, 
and of the ministration of angels, whose names they 
said were revealed as a sacred mystery. Their doc- 
trine of mediating spirits exposed them to the charge 
of magical ceremonies ; and many of their opinions 
and practices they shared with the sect of pagan 
Mystics, who claimed to be the new disciples of 
Pythagoras. 

One eminent writer — so eminent that he is often 

* Philo, De Vita Contemplativa. t Gfrorer. 

16* x 



370 THE ALEXANDKIANS. 

regarded as the true founder of the New-Platonic 
school, that obstinate rival of the Christian Church — 
represents to us in its completest proportions the 
blending of Jewish and Grecian thought that took 
place gradually during the three centuries before 
Christ. Philo the Jew was of a priestly family, rich 
and honourable, and was thoroughly instructed in 
the religious traditions of his people. His birth was 
we know not how many years before that of Jesus, — 
probably as many as twenty. The most marked 
event of his life was his being sent at the head of an 
embassy to intercede with Caligula (A. D. 40) in 
behalf of the Jews, then suffering under a cruel and 
wanton persecution from Flaccus, the governor of 
Alexandria, because they would not worship the em- 
peror as a God. He was then already well advanced 
in years, being the oldest of the legation. One tradi- 
tion makes him acquainted with the Apostle Peter, if 
not his convert, as if to account for his extraordinary 
anticipation of Christian forms of thought ; but the 
saying, " Plato Philonizes, or else Philo Platonizes," 
gives, no doubt, the truer story. 

In his voluminous writings are found all the vari- 
ous characteristics and opinions which have been 
ascribed to the Jewish philosophy of the period, — not 
set forth in an orderly manner, but floating at ran- 
dom in an interminable flood of paraphrase and com- 
ment of the Pentateuch. One is at a loss to know 
how far he accepts the Hebrew tradition as fact, or 
how far he uses it as a veil to his own fond fancies. 
As with the Church Fathers, much of his exposition 
is in the form of homily, and reads like oral dis- 



PHILO THE JEW. 371 

courses, not always wanting in pulpit eloquence, tak- 
ing some sacred legend for the text. The narrative 
is treated with the utmost freedom, to square it with 
the prevalent style of religious speculation. " None 
but a fool would think the world was made in six 
days, or in any given period of time ; " since it is the 
Divine nature to act always, and creation is eternal. 
Adam is the intellectual nature, and woman is formed 
from the necessity of joining with it the sensual and 
material : that she was taken literally from his side, 
" who can believe it ? the tale is mythical." The river 
of Paradise is wisdom ; which being " parted into four 
heads" becomes the four cardinal virtues.* Cain 
and Abel are rival principles ; and since evil is self- 
destructive, it follows that Cain kills himself, not his 
brother. 

The patriarchs are living intercessors with " the 
God of the living." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
represent three styles of religious illumination, — 
innate knowledge, culture, and practical discipline. 
Again, Abraham is intellect, and Sarah virtue, whose 
marriage is wisdom. Again, Abraham routs the 
banded kings and delivers his allies, — that is to say, 
the five senses and the four affections. It is in a 
phantom shape, not a real body, that the Word (not 
Jehovah) appears to him in Mamre. His migration 
is emancipation from the body, and is attended by 
angels ; " for he who follows God necessarily has for 
his attendants those Words of his which we call 
angels." His offering of Isaac is the sacrifice of 
pleasure or delight, which belongs to God alono. 

* So Josephus; also Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIII. 21. 



372 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

His change of name was from " lofty father," to 
" elect father of the Voice." 

The angels of the sacred books are equivalent to 
the Daemons or Heroes of the Greek mythology. 
Noah is the same as Deucalion ; the builders of Ba- 
bel are compared with the Titans who heaped Pelion 
oii Ossa ; and the fabled Atlantis finds its place in 
the exposition of Jewish legend. Moses when a child 
refused all childish sports ; and while at the court of 
Pharaoh, his teachers were brought "from the re- 
motest parts of Egypt and Greece." The burning 
bush signifies that the righteous " shall not perish 
by the fury of their foes." Not God himself, but his 
"Word, was present in the pillar of cloud that led the 
desert march.* Moses is the " prophet Word ; " 
"Balaam (the empty vulgar) holds discourse with his 
ass, — that is, the brutish way of life that every fool 
rides on." The high-priest entering the sanctuary 
is no longer a man, but represents " the Word, which 
putteth on the universe as a garment." And of 
Manna, " what is sweeter than honey, or whiter than 
snow ? that bread which is the word of God." f 
Such are specimens of this novel rendering of the 
Hebrew books, taken at random from the wide ex- 
panse of Philo's commentaries. 

Of particular doctrines are the following : — 
Of God and his Worship. — " We may know that 
God is, but not what God is." The divine powers or 

* Compare 1 Cor. x. 4. 

t See the treatises, De Abrahamo, De Temuhntia, De Migratione Abra- 
hami, De Confusione Linguarum, De Vita Mosis, pp. 509, 613, De Nobili- 
tate, De Profngis, p. 466. 



PHILO. — OF GOD AND HIS WORSHIP. 373 

attributes are segments of Deity ; the names " Lord " 
and " God " are significant of might and goodness, 
whose reconciler is the Word. This is Philo's trin- 
ity. God is " the God of Abraham," etc., that is, the 
relative for the absolute, since God has no need of 
name. " God governs not as a tyrant, but as a mild 
and lawful king, whose most fit name is Father." 
He gives blessings to the evil and unthankful, to 
stimulate them to goodness. Spirit is that which is 
breathed into the soul by God. To receive the divin- 
ity, one must be as in Corybaean ecstasy, as a child 
without speech or consciousness. " The mind when 
it purely serves God is not human, but divine ; but 
when it turns to any human thing, descending from 
heaven, rather falling upon the earth, it goes forth, 
even though it remain in the body." " Nothing so 
rouses the mind to liberty as to become a fugitive and 
suppliant to God." " What should be true sacrifice 
but the worship of a pious soul? whose homage is 
everlasting, written on tablets before God, to last as 
long as sun and moon and universe." The only fit 
sacrifices are " those of the soul that brings as its 
offering mere and only truth." " God finds no wor- 
thier temple than the mind." * 

* Philo, De Abrahamo, De Pi'ovidentia, Quod Deterior Potiori invidet, 
p. 159, De Lege Allegorice, Quis Rerum Divinarum Hceres, p. 492, De 
Vita Mosis, De Nobilitate. 

Compare Apollonius of Tyana (quoted by Zeller, Vol. III. p. 305): 
" Thus, as I think, should one render the most fit service to the Di- 
vinity, and thence find him merciful and propitious, and thus only : if 
to God (of whom we have first said that he is One, apart from all, 
and whom it is needful for all to search out), he neither offer sacrifice 
nor kindle fire nor have recourse to anything at all of sensible things ; 



374 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

Of the Divine Word. — God having determined 
to make the world, first (as the builder of a city) 
made an intellectual image or model, — the Logos or 
Word, which is the intelligible world (#007^09 1/0771-09), 
idea of ideas, and image of God ; mediator among 
the divine attributes ; " helmsman and ruler of all 
things." " If no one is worthy to be called son of 
God, at least share the glory of the Word." " To 
the archangel and most ancient Word the Father, who 
hath begotten all things, gave the choice gift, that, 
standing as Mediator, he should judge the Maker's 
work. He is Advocate of the mortal with the Eter- 
nal, an Envoy of the Ruler to his subjects. He re- 
joices in his office, and fulfils it, saying, I am come 
between the Lord and you, being neither unborn as 
God nor born as you, but midst of the two extremes, 
and hostage to both, — with the Creator, as assurance 
that he will never wholly destroy or forsake his off- 
spring ; and with the Creature, as a pledge that the 
merciful God will never overlook his own work. For 
I announce peace from him that knoweth how to put 
an end to war, — God the Guardian of peace." * 

It is not the particular opinions he held, or the 
fond fancies that garnish his writings, but rather the 

— for He needs nothing, not even from those better than we; nor is 
there a plant which the earth puts forth, or a creature which the air 
supports, to which there adheres not some taint ; — but uses always 
towards him the better discourse alone, — I mean not that which passes 
through the lips, but from the fairest of beings seeks the best things by 
what is fairest in us ; and the mind requires no organs. Thus by no 
means should we offer sacrifice to God, who is great and above all." 

* Philo, De Cherubis, p. 114, De Confus. Ling., p. 341, Quis Rerum 
Divin. Hceres, 509. 



PHILO. — LOGOS OR WORD OF GOD. 375 

style of thought, making him a representative of his 
era, and preparing the way for later schemes of Chris- 
tian doctrine, that gives interest and value to Philo's 
speculations. In them we find, not clearly or consist- 
ently set forth, but assumed as part of the texture, 
that doctrine of the Divine Word so remarkably ex- 
panded afterwards in the Alexandrian theology. It 
is hardly too much to say, that in the various treatises 
of Philo almost every cardinal point of the later 
school of Christian dogmatics is clearly anticipated or 
reproduced ; at least, a groundwork is prepared for 
it in the style of thought and language which they 
helped to make familiar. We find in him already 
the Word as the second Divinity,* the first-born Son, 
the Image, Messenger, and executive Agent (u7rap^o?) 
of God, the Light of the world, the Advocate, Media- 
tor, Intercessor, Mediatorial High-Priest, the Refuge 
and Physician of souls, Shepherd of the flock, Or- 
dainer of all things, Type of the creation,! Seal of 
testimony, Fountain of wisdom, and sinless Saviour 
from sin.J We find the doctrine of Ransom or Re- 
demption, of spiritual blessedness, of repentance and 
faith as the source of good works and the ground of 
justification ; of the Holy Spirit and the sacred Triad. 
How important the service rendered in advance by 
this rich circle of ideas, this complete system of re- 
ligious symbolism, to those who strove to interpret to 
the succeeding generation the life and ministration 
and spiritual offices of Christ ! 

* Geo?, but not 6 6e6s. 

t Compare Coloss. i. 15, 16. 

t See Bryant, " Sentiments of Philo concerning the Logos." 



376 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

But it is not the service rendered in this one direc- 
tion alone that we owe to these religious schools of 
Alexandria. Another spectacle so interesting, so sol- 
emn in its significance, is scarcely presented in the 
whole history of human thought, as this confluence 
of the two main streams of the spiritual life of an- 
tiquity. However fantastic or arbitrary the partic- 
ular form into which they ran, the point of chief 
moment yet remains, — that this confluence was 
actually brought about, and at such a time and in 
such a way as to render the most needed service to 
humanity. The ripe fruit of ancient culture, the 
loftiest results attained by an elaborate metaphysics, 
were gathered before the root they sprang from was 
wholly perished, — before the intellectual life of the 
time was altogether wasted and destroyed by scepti- 
cism. The grand and earnest faith of the old He- 
brew people was the element required to restore life 
and vigour to the effete metaphysics of the West ; 
while it was saved from a technical and vain provin- 
cialism by blending itself with the richer culture 
developed on the soil of Europe. Each was needful 
to the other ; and their union was brought about at 
the precise point of time that made it of the greatest 
possible avail in the new religious era about to be 
inaugurated. 

Still, great and transcendently important as was 
the service thus effected, it was but a service of pre- 
paration, — "a spectral and visionary fata morgana 
appearing on the horizon where Christianity was 
about to dawn." * The material was prepared, and 

* Dorner. 



JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND CHRISTIAN FAITH. 377 

the way was open ; but the breath* of life had yet to 
be breathed from another source. The Word as the 
immanent Reason and Life of things, as the divine 
and creative Energy, made part of men's philosophic 
creed, and was ready to be ingrafted in due season 
on their theology. But the same Word was yet to be 
recognized as " manifest in the flesh and dwelling 
among men," before the Alexandrian speculations 
could become fruitful in men's religious life, or the 
final task of Israel could be done. That which had 
been developed as Philosophy was to be seized and 
appropriated as Faith. This was a revolution for 
which the world had yet to wait. 

Nothing in the tone of the writings we have been 
now considering is more striking to the Christian 
reader than their complete unconsciousness of any 
symptoms of the great change already impending, — 
their utter inability to apprehend their own moment 
and value as an element in the spiritual regenera- 
tion of the race. The glorious " almost Christian " 
thoughts of Philo, so vivid in their new relations as 
symbolic drapery of the living form of divine Truth 
and Love, appear but feebly and at random in the 
confused detail of allegoric interpretations by which 
he was eager to recommend his religious traditions 
to the sceptic and subtile Greek. They have to be 
painfully sought and carefully traced out by an eye 
already familiar with them in their new garb and col- 
ouring. And what the Jewish philosopher but cas- 
ually betrays in the undertone of allusion, exposi- 
tion, or appeal, becomes, if so regarded, significant 
of the most momentous revolution that has ever been 
wrought in the intellectual history of mankind. 



378 THE ALEXANDRIANS. 

This unconscious testimony, this betrayal at un- 
awares of a form of thought destined to have so 
profound an influence in the coming generation, is 
what gives its deepest interest, and even a certain 
pathos, to the history of these religious exiles of 
Alexandria. The sacred treasure of their tradition, 
twice violently transferred from the soil where its 
growth was native, they held with a jealous rever- 
ence ; and proved their fidelity by incorporating it 
with the best they could learn or share of the rich 
intellectual heritage of their adopted country. 
Standing on the verge of their expiring fortunes 
as a people, and destined within another generation 
to be dispersed in a far more remorseless "Captiv- 
ity " than any they had known as yet, their patient 
zeal lent itself to the task of interpreting to the 
world the oracles of their holy Word. The world 
received them ; yet in another than the intended 
sense. And long after the Hebrew remnant was 
shattered and dispersed, and its very name had be- 
come a mockery and reproach, these very words and 
phrases, by which it signified the identity of its own 
tradition with the loftiest of the world's cultivated 
thought, were emblazoned on the victorious Creed 
of Christendom. 



III. THE MESSIAH. 



FROM the death of Herod the Great to the siege 
of Jerusalem by Titus is a period of rather more 
than seventy years. To the Jews it was, almost from 
first to last, a time of despairing struggle and hopeless 
suffering. The destiny foredoomed in the fate of the 
last native line of kings came steadily on, like the 
cloud which the prophet saw rising from the west, 
till it overwhelmed state and people in one ruin. 
A single spot of comparative calm exhibits the ad- 
vent of the new and higher Faith that sprang from 
the perishing stock of Israel ; all else shows only a 
protracted and disastrous effort to ward off the im- 
pending doom, animated by the nation's obstinate 
hope of its coming Deliverer and King. 

The history of this final period turns therefore 
upon the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, — the 
fanatical attempts to realize it, and " take the king- 
dom of heaven by violence," together with the fulfil- 
ment of it in a revolution which burst the bands of 
the ancient creed, threw down " the middle wall of 
partition," and shared the hope of Israel among all the 
families of the earth. In this regard, it is not only 
the catastrophe of a nation that we are to consider, 
but a crisis momentous above every other in the 



380 THE MESSIAH. 

spiritual destinies of mankind. The three leading 
forms of antique civilization were now come to their 
final term of development. The way of thought had 
been prepared for the new religion by a fusion be- 
tween the Hebrew and Grecian mind as complete as 
the elements might admit; the way of empire was 
now laid open by the conquests of that great city 
whose history is henceforth, for fifteen hundred 
years, the history of the world. As Rome came to 
embrace in its dominion the circuit of the Mediter- 
ranean, " the coast-line of Judaea was the last remote 
portion which was needed to complete the fated cir- 
cumference." * Israel — in the person of its afflicted 
people, and pf One who represents at this period its 
highest and truest life — was the last victim offered 
up on this altar of the world, that nations might 
be reconciled in a common empire, and minds in a 
common faith. 

Such is the spiritual aspect of this period, taken as 
a whole, and its place in the history of the world. 
As a portion of the life of the Hebrew people, its 
interest is almost wholly tragical. A destiny, inex- 
piable and horrid, like that of the Greek heroic 
drama, broods over it, growing more black and 
gloomy towards the close. The nation's doom throws 
its shadow far back upon the past. Rome, in the 
flush of her triumph over Hannibal, had marked the 
contests of the petty Asiatic states, and her powerful 
word of recognition had upheld the Jewish common- 
wealth in the struggle by which its last liberties were 
won. Now the same dread and domineering power 

* Conybeare's " St. Paul." 



REIGN OF HEROD. 381 

began to invade those liberties, and to crush out the 
nation's life. 

Edom, in the language of Jewish mystics, is the 
Scripture type of Rome : the reign of Herod made it 
also the historical type. It was by a Roman lord that 
he was thrice made master of the destinies of Israel. 
It was the model of Roman dominion that this power- 
ful and unscrupulous Idumaean chief laboured to 
establish. It was as a conqueror, or (in the old 
Greek sense) a tyrant, that he ruled, — one whose 
might was his only right ; and the nation never pro- 
fessed him its allegiance. His merciless suspicion 
had destroyed every one of the only Hebrew family 
which the national hope could oppose to him, so as 
even to undermine his own authority by the murder 
of his Maccabaean wife. If he had nearly won the 
people's good-will by restoring their religious privi- 
lege, and reinstating their ritual in far more than its 
ancient splendour, he roused their passionate grief 
by the treachery that destroyed their young and 
royal priest on the evening of their high festival ; 
and tempted their deadliest suspicion by the foreign 

manners with which he invaded their national char- 

• 

acter and faith. The stately temple, glittering with 
marble front and gilded roof, displayed on its portal 
the imperial golden eagle, and was flanked by the 
impregnable fortress Antonia, named by Herod for 
the most profligate of the Romans. A theatre within 
the walls exhibited the Greek plays and dances ; an 
amphitheatre without, the bloody spectacles of Rome. 
Caesar ea, with its spacious port and marble colonnades, 
a habitation of princes," was a Roman town ; bear- 



u 



382 THE MESSIAH. 

ing, like Sebaste or Augusta, the Roman emperor's 
name. In strict accordance with the centralizing 
policy of the empire, Herod thus sapped the charac- 
teristic life of his own people, and provoked the first 
outbreak of that " frightful Messianic tempest " which 
raged with little intermission for more than half a 
century, and ceased not but with the total ruin of 
the Jewish state. 

While his two sons, Archelaus and Antipas, were 
disputing their claim before Augustus, the revolt 
(which had already begun in an assault on the gold 
eagle of the temple) first took a distinct and threat- 
ening shape. With no royal or priestly line about 
which the hopes of all might rally, Palestine was for 
a few years a prey to aimless bursts of frenzy, and 
the feuds of as many pretended kings as there were 
ambitious rebel chiefs. Judas, son of the old Gali- 
laean bandit Hezekiah, Simon, a former slave of 
Herod, who destroyed many royal palaces, and the 
giant shepherd Athronges, are named in quick suc- 
cession as candidates for the perilous honours of 
royalty ; and a pretender, in the name of Alexander 
son of Mariamne, received homage and royal gifts 
from the Jews in Crete and Rome, till Augustus, 
looking at his hands, which were strong and coarse, 
exposed the imposture, and made him a rower in the 
imperial galleys. " Thus did a great and wild fury 
spread itself over the nation, because they had no 
king to keep the multitude in order," and because 
the troops sent to quell the sedition cared less for the 
public peace than for plunder and revenge. "Judaea 
was full of robberies ; and as the several companies 



JUD^A A ROMAN PROVINCE. 383 

of rebels lit upon any one to head them, he was 
created a king immediately." 

This horrible disorder was stayed by Yarus, the 
Syrian governor, — mercifully and temperately, it 
should seem, by the standard of provincial rule, but 
at the cost of crucifying some two thousand of the 
guiltiest. The Jews sent to Rome to beg such liber- 
ties as the imperial state might grant. Loudly and 
bitterly they accused the recent tyranny of Herod, 
who u had put upon them such abuses as not a wild 
beast upon the throne would have done ; " they 
entreated " to be delivered from kingly and the like 
forms of government ; " and prayed to be put under 
the more just rule of the Syrian governor, whoever 
he might be. But Herod's three sons, Archelaus, 
Antipas, and Philip, were confirmed as rulers of three 
districts of Palestine, till ten years later, when the 
popular complaint of " barbarous and tyrannical 
usage " reached Augustus's ears, and Archelaus was 
sent into banishment to Gaul. 

Now for the first time Judaea was enrolled as a 
Roman province,, and the celebrated "taxing" took 
place under Cyrenius (or Quirinus), governor of 
Syria. (A. D. 7.) Not all were prepared to submit 
peaceably to this surrender of the last forms of inde- 
pendence. A formidable revolt under Judas the 
Gaulonite began that systematic opposition to the 
Roman rule — now latent, now open and furious — 
which took presently the final and fatal form of the 
sect of Zealots. " The nation was infected with this 
doctrine to an incredible degree ; " whence resulted, 
says Josephus, robberies and murders innumerable, 



384 THE MESSIAH. 

with famine and the dreadful desolation that came at 
last. But the object which Roman policy had aimed 
at so long was now secured. Judasa by its own 
choice had become a portion of the conquering 
empire. Steadily and irresistibly pressed the re- 
morseless Roman rule, aggravated, no doubt, by the 
scorn felt towards the race and faith.* Coponius 
Ambivius and Antonius Rufus filled with their brief 
administrations the last seven years of Augustus. 
Tiberius during all his reign (A. D. 14-37) sent 
only two, Valerius G-ratus and Pontius Pilate, — a 
merciful relief to the impatient rapacity of those 
whose term of legal plunder was brief and must be 
improved. The reason Tiberius gave is characteris- 
tic of the Roman rule generally, as well as of his 
own cold and scornful temper : — he would not 
drive away the flies that were already well gorged 
with feeding on the " sick man's " bruises and sores, 
and so admit a fresh, hungry swarm. 

The reign of Tiberius, so full of the sullen terrors 
of tyranny at home, was accordingly a time of com- 
parative repose to Palestine. The north was ruled 
by Herod Antipas ; the east by the milder Philip ; 
Gratus and Pilate sharing successively the domination 
of the south. Roman policy spared such national 
customs, and religious beliefs or rites, as did not 
openly challenge Roman supremacy in the state. 
In secular affairs Caesar claimed his own ; in spirit- 
ual, no conscience was forbidden to " render to God 

* " Vile damnum," says Tacitus, speaking of a few thousand Jews 
expelled from Rome, who perished in the savage island of Sardinia. 
(Annals, II. 85.) 



PONTIUS PILATE. 385 

the things that are God's." Neither of the Procura- 
tors under Tiberius exceeded the average of provin- 
cial peculation and cruelty ; both probably came 
short of it. As long as the national hope remained 
a barren doctrine, — nay, even when it took the form 
of a strong popular enthusiasm (as in the case of 
Jesus), yet without directly menacing the imperial 
rule, — it was the cautious policy of Pilate not to 
interfere. Experience, indeed, had made him wary, 
and suspicion made him cruel, as in the case of the 
Galilseans whose blood he " mingled with their sac- 
rifices," — : a temper which the Jews easily wrought 
upon to procure a Galilaean prophet's condemna- 
tion ; * and one is tempted to assign a diplomatic 
motive, rather than humane, to his long parleying 
with them in the Judgment Hall, as if he would 
commit them in advance against any Messianic insur- 
rection. Gaining this, he safely insulted the nation's 
hope by the mocking inscription on the cross. Once 
he ventured so far as to bring the emperor's image 
on the Roman ensigns within the sacred city ; but 
when the Jews offered themselves, without resist- 
ance, to be massacred by the troops rather than 
endure the sacrilege, he yielded, and carried the 
images back to Csesarea.f Once a popular revolt 
was threatened, when he undertook to build an 
aqueduct of some twenty-five miles from the funds 
of the temple treasury ; but a party of his guards, 
mingling in the crowd, despatched no few of them 

* Luke xiii. 1 ; xxiii. 6. 

t Or the imperial shields, as Philo says, which he removed at Tihe- 
rius's command. 

17 Y 



386 THE MESSIAH. 

with hidden daggers, and " quickly put an end to 
that sedition." 

In this last brief period of the nation's life, some 
show of independence was still preserved. The gov- 
ernor's head-quarters were at Caesarea on the sea- 
coast. Jerusalem was the religious capital of the 
district, and was left mainly under native rule. A 
spiritual power, resting on the sacred tradition, and 
administered by Rabbins* (interpreters, or doctors 
of the Canon-Law), had gradually grown up since 
the Captivity, and for practical purposes had nearly 
supplanted the priesthood itself. This learned body 
had now acquired an extraordinary sanctity. " The 
voice of the Rabbi is the voice of God," was the Jewish 
saying ; and the Almighty himself was pictured, by a 
coarse and irreverent fancy, as the ideal or archetypal 
Rabbi, — his robes of authority and his daily cus- 
toms being those of this "spiritual police." f Where 
there are ten who have knowledge of the Law, there 
must be a Synagogue with its stated service ; if fewer 
assemble, the Lord will say, Wherefore am I called 
and none are here ? With each synagogue was con- 
nected a school for the instruction in the Law ; in 
Palestine, it was said, were five hundred such schools, 
the least containing five hundred pupils ; Rabbi Ga- 
maliel alone had no less than a thousand, of whom 
half studied Jewish and half Gentile learning. In 

* The title Eabbi is said to have been first given to Simeon, — the 
same who took up the infant Jesus in the temple. 

t Three hours a day, they said, he renders judgment, three hours he 
contemplates the Law, three hours he feeds his creatures, and three he 
plays with Leviathan. (Job xli. 5.) 



THE SANHEDRIM. 387 

Jerusalem alone were four hundred and sixty syna- 
gogues. "To multiply schools and put a hedge 
about the Law," was the Eabbinic maxim. Such a 
system of public instruction by degrees gathered the 
real religious power into the hands of this body ; and 
more than all else prepared the name and faith of 
Israel to survive the annihilation of temple, priest- 
hood, and the nation's life. 

At the head of this system of spiritual jurisdiction 
was the Sanhedrim, or great Court of Seventy. Tra- 
dition fondly traced it by direct descent from the 
" elders " appointed by Moses in the wilderness. It 
was now in its highest eminence and splendour, with 
power supreme in religious affairs, and civil authority 
little short of life and death. While the Temple was 
shorn of its ancient glories, — deprived of the Divine 
fire, ark, and holy oracle, the Shekinah or visible 
Presence, and the consecrating oil, — a share of its 
diminished sanctity fell to this great ecclesiastical 
Court. Pilate himself was practically powerless to 
rescue Jesus from its condemnation ; and the death- 
sentence of the first Christian martyr was delayed for 
no formal sanction of procurator or king. " To each 
state its own religion," was the maxim of Roman 
rule ; * and among the Jews civil and religious mat- 
ters were so intimately blended, that in virtue of it 
no small degree of popiilar liberty still survived. A 
style of thought had gradually grown up, and was 
prevalent now, as characteristic and strongly marked 
as at any former period of Hebrew history. As being 
(so to speak) the last expression of the Hebrew mind, 

* Cicero, Pro Flacco, c. 28, in express reference to the Jews. 



388 THE MESSIAH. 

and as forming that soil of Judaism in which the 
religion of Christ had its first planting and nurture, 
it becomes one of the most important features of the 
age we are now considering. 

While the Jews of Egypt were slowly transforming 
the faith of their fathers into the likeness of Grecian 
wisdom, among those in Palestine had grown up a 
system of belief more deeply tinged with Oriental 
notions, — far more characteristically and exclusive- 
ly Jewish. The speculations they shared with their 
brethren in the remoter East became sacred mysteries, 
hidden by the cipher of which Rabbinic tradition only 
held the key. They became scholiasts of Holy Writ ; 
explaining it " by anagram, riddle, and acrostic," 
by cabalistic play of numbers,* by a system of casuist- 
ry marvellously and hopelessly minute. f The Scrip- 
tures, in such a system, are easily made the source 
and summary of all wisdom. Not " a jot or a tittle " 
could pass from the law ; J to every letter was as- 

* Thus, taking the numerical equivalent of "Ethiopian " (Numbers xii. 1 ), 
they explained that Moses married a woman of " fair countenance," so 
acquitting him of the guilt of an uncanonical marriage. The numerical 
value of David is 14 (Matthew i. 17) ; of Balaam son q/Beor, 666 
(Revelation xiii. 18); and Shiloh, by the same interpretation, is made 
equivalent to Messiah. 

t A celelebrated Rabbi says that there are at least eight hundred 
volumes which he must have " at his fingers' ends," to meet cases 
of daily practice. " How should he have time for Gentile learn- 
ing ?" 

X Illustrated, in Jewish fashion, thus : The letter Jod fell on its face 
before God, and said, O eternal Lord ! thou hast taken me away from 
the name of that holy woman ! (in the change from Sarai to Sara) ; 
but the blessed God answered, Hitherto thou hast been but in the name 
of a woman, and that at the end ; hereafter thou shalt be in the name 
of a man, and at the beginning. And for four hundred years the letter 



SCRIPTUEE AND TEADITION. 389 

signed its place and traditionary size in the sacred 
scroll ; * and the mightiest miracles are wrought by 
the hidden virtue of the letters which spell the name 
Jehovah, f 

The dominant sect of Pharisees had an equal 
jealousy at the allegorical fancies of the Mystics, and 
that whole style of learning which they comprehen- 
sively termed " wisdom of Javan." " Is it not writ- 
ten in the Law," said a Rabbi to his scholar, " that 
thou shalt meditate therein day and night ? whatever 
hour, therefore, thou canst find belonging neither to 
the day nor night, in that thou mayest study Grecian 
wisdom." In the interpreting of Scripture, Prophecy 
itself is set far below that oral Tradition which was 
given by Moses to the Seventy, and from them descend- 
ed to Ezra, by whom it was embodied in the doctrines 
of his school.^ It was even a question whether the 
Law itself or the tradition were the holier ; " The 
words of the Law are weighty and light, but the 
words of the Scribes are all weighty," was a saying 

Jod did not cease to importune, until Oshea the son of Nun was born, 
whom the Lord called Joshua. 

* Thus the full form toledoth (" generations") occurs only in Ruth 
iv. 18 : by its six letters, say the Rabbins, it is shown that in Messiah 
shall be restored the glory of man, length of days, stature, fruits of earth, 
fruits of trees, and light of heaven. The letter Nun is twice reversed ; 
signifying once the turning of Jehovah to his people, and once their 
turning back from him. It is an argument for the stability of Scrip- 
ture, that a diminished Heth has not vanished entirely. 

t The Shem hamphorash ("explained name"), by the stolen knowl- 
edge of which, say the Rabbins, the miracles of Jesus were wrought. 

} Since Malachi, they said, the Urim and Thummim have ceased in 
Israel ; in place of which is granted the audible omen, or Bath-kol, 
" daughter of the Voice," — a reverential and beautiful belief, to which 
several allusions occur in the Christian Scripture. 



390 THE MESSIAH. 

among the Jews, — one which must have been vehe- 
mently contested until the dispute was compromised 
by affirming that both, if not absolutely eternal, at 
least existed in Paradise before the world was. 

That storehouse of Jewish fancy, anecdote, custom, 
tradition, and canon-law, the Talmud, was in great 
part gathered in its present form a century or two 
later, but was already in substance the popular creed 
and the staple learning of Jewish schools. Its body 
of doctrine may have owned a Babylonish parentage ; 
but the garb it wore was woven of Scripture threads. 
All is taught in detail, and by specification. Thus 
pre-existence and transmigration are signified in the 
dogmatic formula that all men have sinned in Adam, 
and in him a covenant was made with them long 
before their birth. From the dim cloud-land, Goph, 
the limbo of pre-existent spirits, each child is before 
its birth led by an angel to hell and paradise, whereof 
all after knowledge is but a faint reminiscence. The 
federal head of the human race is Adam Kadmon the 
primal Man, male-female,* from whom all souls are 
emanations ; or, by another opinion, his spirit is the 
image of God incarnate afterwards in Enoch, Noah, 
Jacob, and the Messiah. f Elijah is identical with 
Phinehas, Melchizedek, and Shem ; Laban still car- 
ries on his strife with Israel in the person of Balaam 
and of Cushan-Rishathaim the first invader. The 

* Genesis i. 27. 

t So some of the early Christians held that Jesus was clothed in 
Adam's body, and crucified upon the spot of his grave. See in Sir 
John Mandeville the beautiful legend of the Cross, wrought of four 
kinds of trees, — the cedar for strength, the cypress for fragrance, the 
palm for victory, and the olive for peace. 



OPINIONS AND FANCIES OF THE TALMUD. 391 

seven dukes of Edom " before there was any king in 
Israel " signify seven preadamic worlds, which were 
"without form and void" previous to the existing 
creation. And the phrase " day one " (instead of 
" first day "), in the story of the Creation, has a mys- 
terious reference to the unity of all things in God. 
" A man does not hurt his finger on earth but it is 
decreed in heaven," was the proverbial form of the 
doctrine of predestination ; " a little bird is not taken 
without the will of Heaven ; how much less the soul 
of a man." 

Well known to us, through the New Testament, are 
the doctrines of Daemons, descended from the " sons 
of God and daughters of men," as the cause of many 
maladies ; of Beelzebub their prince, and their desert- 
haunts ; of Satan the chief Adversary, whom the Mes- 
siah must overcome in personal encounter, so as to 
expiate his people's sin ; of guardian spirits and the 
hierarchy of the Angels ; of sin before birth, and 
disease the penalty of parents' guilt ; as well as the 
scrupulous casuistry of the rules respecting Sabbath, 
fasting, alms, and prayer.* The extraordinary fables 

* As an instance of Jewish scruple, when a poor scholar asked if it 
were lawful for cheapness to write on pigskin parchment, the reply was, 
" Is it not written, The words of this Law shall be in thy mouth and in 
thy heart 1" whence it was ingeniously gathered that they might be 
written on the skins of such beasts only as may be eaten. One prayer 
of the Jews was recited in Syriac, lest the angels, who are ignorant of 
that tongue, should overhear it, and envy the Jews the blessings it 
besought. The rules of the Sabbath are curiously quibbling and 
minute. The wretched Jewish exiles from the Spanish Inquisition, 
starving on the African shore, would not gather with their hands on the 
Sabbath the grass which was their only food, but stooped and plucked 
it with their teeth. 



392 THE MESSIAH. 

respecting the terrestrial Paradise in Messiah's king- 
dom ; of Behemoth, a beast so huge as to cover " a 
thousand hills," and Leviathan, slain and salted from 
of old for the everlasting banquets of the elect ; 
vineyards, of which each cluster shall yield a year's 
store of wine, and each grape be clamorous to be 
gathered before its fellow ; and the prodigious stature 
of the primal Adam,* are the grotesque exaggeration 
and travesty peculiar to the later style of Judaism. 

The two grand pivots of this system of doctrine are 
" Moses, the ideal of the past, and Messiah, the ideal 
of the future," between whom ran an elaborate 
dogmatic parallelism. 

Moses is made almost a divinity, — "a prophet 
(says Josephus) such as never was known ; so that 
whatever he spake one would think he heard the 
voice of God himself." The miracle of crossing the 
Red Sea was magnified by supposing twelve separate 
channels in the waves for the twelve tribes of Israel ; 
and even by asserting that the people crossed dry- 
shod, walking upon the waters. At the giving of the 
Law, Mount Sinai was lifted up to heaven ; and the 
Israelites, thus " baptized in the cloud and in the 
sea," were washed free from all stain of original sin. 
The mysterious expression, that they " saw the light- 
nings and the noise of the trumpet," was interpreted 
into the startling fancy that the trumpet-voice be- 
came " cloven tongues of fire," which proclaimed the 
Law in the seventy languages of the earth ; so that 
each nation, summoned by the same trump to judg- 

* A phantom man ninety -six miles high ; his terrestrial representa- 
tive reaching a hundred and twenty-five feet. 



MOSES. — MESSIANIC DOCTRINE. 393 

ment, shall be righteously judged by the same law, 
"without which there can be no sin." When the 
time drew near for Moses to depart, the Lord thrice 
sent Sammael the death-angel to bring away his soul, 
which he would yield to none other but God himself, 
who received it with a kiss ; he was taken up to 
heaven in a cloud, in the presence of his grieving 
companions ; and Michael the archangel, the celestial 
champion of Israel, strove with Satan for his body.* 

Whatever wonders had attended the old dispensa- 
tion were greatly magnified in the anticipation of the 
new. That prayer, say the Jewish writers, is not a 
prayer, which does not make mention of the kingdom 
of God. The coming of that kingdom in the person 
and triumph of the Messiah had been the old pro- 
phetic hope, which was elaborated now into a doctrine 
full and positive enough to make for two generations 
the goad of the people's struggle and the final crisis 
of the nation's life. A prevalent belief among the 
Jews fixed the duration of the world at seven thou- 
sand years, of which six were nearly expired, — the 
remaining thousand being the Messiah's destined 
triumphant reign. In the calamities of the time, 
it was felt that " the whole creation groaned and 
travailed in pain " for the birth of the coming One ; f 
and the " seventy weeks " predicted in the Book of 
Daniel were by the general interpretation just ful- 
filled. "Through the whole East," says Suetonius, 
" an old and constant opinion had spread that the 

* See Epistle of Jude v. 9. 

t Romans viii. 22. Compare the expression apxh t&v g>SiVg>j>, 
Matt. xxiv. 8. 

17 # 



394 THE MESSIAH. 

destined rulers of things should come about this time 
from Judsea." " When you bury me," said a dying 
Jew, " put shoes on my feet and a staff in my hand, 
that I may be ready when Messiah eometh." Many 
a man, " just and devout was waiting (like Simeon) 
for the consolation of Israel ; " many a mother hoped 
in her heart that her new-born child should be the 
expected one. And the belief was no doubt encour- 
aged, and moulded to their own purpose, by men who 
had no hearty share in it ; who were too willing to 
profit by the popular faith as a point of resistance to 
Roman tyranny, or to enhance the price of their own 
discretion, while they left the multitude a prey to the 
frenzies and oppressions which such a doctrine must 
provoke. 

The details of the Messianic hope at this period 
were peculiarly the property and shaping of the re- 
ligious schools ; vague and incoherent as it doubtless 
was, yet modelled in the main after a common type. 
A most disastrous hope it proved in the form now 
given it, " more fatal to them than any pestilence ; a 
faith to which they sacrificed myriads of their stoutest 
youth." The fruit at first of a pure religious patriot- 
ism, the solace of deep calamity, the stay against im- 
pending ruin, it had grown to be a vindictive and 
passionate confidence of triumph and revenge. A 
hope long deferred it was ; and Jewish subtilty was 
exhausted to devise the conditions of its fulfilment. 
The Messiah would come, they said, if the Sabbath 
should be perfectly observed twice or thrice ; or if for 
a single day all Israel should heartily repent. " Open 
to me the way of repentance as the eye of a needle," 



SIGNS OF HIS COMING. 395 

they said, " and I will open to you a passage for char- 
iots." The coming deliverance must be preceded 
by great disasters. Corruption and depravity should 
overspread the earth, with desertion of the law, fol- 
lowed by dreadful judgments of heaven in calamity 
of many kinds, — drought, famine, and tempest, pes- 
tilence and war, with the horrors so powerfully re- 
flected in the apocalyptic warning given to the fol- 
lowers of Jesus.* " Galilee shall be destroyed, and 
the men of Galilee shall go from place to place, and 
shall find no pity." 

These calamities, drawn too truly from the fact, 
were no arbitrary infliction, nor a mere retributive 
judgment on the people ; but in the Jewish view had 
a direct propitiatory value. Not only, by their doc- 
trine of expiation, did the faith of Abraham and the 
patriarchs atone in advance for their descendants' sin, 
but all death, especially one of violence, and all suf- 
fering, especially that which befalls the innocent, has 
the same effect. f Moved, therefore, not so much by 
compassion as by the legal expiation of their guilt, 
God should bring his people to a season of repent- 
ance, and Israel should be once more redeemed by 
the merit of the saints. For, they held, miraculous 
degrees of virtue and superhuman holiness among 
the chosen few are a better passport to Divine favour 
than the more moderate and equal virtue of the 
whole ; it is for the elect's sake that the world is pre- 

* Matthew, chap. xxiv. ; Luke, chap f xxi. 

t See John xi. 50. Hence the execution of criminals at the time of 
Passover ; and the abuse and vilifying of the condemned, in the merci- 
ful hope of alleviating their torments in another world. 



396 THE MESSIAH. 

served and redeemed ; it is the sacrificial efficacy of 
their merit, or their suffering, that wins the blessing 
from above. 

That blessing should be granted at length, in the 
voluntary manumission of captive Jews among all 
nations, in preparation for the reign of peace. Under 
a mysterious impulse from God, or by the invisible 
guidance of his Word, the ransomed captives should 
throng at once to Palestine. Then should be a season 
of prosperity and gladness to the chosen land. Cities 
should be built, and the ancient realm of Israel re- 
stored to far more than its former splendour. Then, 
heralded by the star of Jacob, the victorious Warrior 
and just Prince should come, and inflict a bloody ven- 
geance on the enemies of his people. His coming 
should be as a thief in the night ; being manifested 
first "in Galilee and the parts of Joseph, because 
Galilee was first led captive." In him (to quote the 
vague and various opinions of the Jews) shall be 
incarnate the spirit that was in Moses and Elias ; he 
shall be the second Adam, to restore the ruins of the 
first ; the prophet, like to Moses, whose name is Com- 
forter ; the ideal or official representative of the He- 
brew people ; the prophet, priest, and king, to fulfil 
the purpose of the elder dispensation ; the Son of 
Man, who shall sit in judgment over men and angels ; 
the embodiment of the pre-existing wisdom or Word 
of God ; the Son of David, who shall restore the 
kingdom to Israel ; the Son of God, born of no 
human father, but of the Divine Spirit : the breath 
of his mouth shall be a flame to slay the wicked. 
The ten lost tribes shall be restored from their long 



FRUITS OF HIS COMING. 397 

exile, to rejoin their brethren in the Holy Land. 
Kings shall bring their gifts ; all nations shall either 
be subdued or peaceably submit. All war and crime 
shall cease, and all ravage of wild beasts. Children 
and kindred shall throng in every house, and none 
shall die before their time. Jerusalem, its palaces 
decked with gold and jewels, shall spread from the 
sea coast to Damascus, — its length, breadth, and 
height all equal.* The river of life shall flow from 
the temple ; the tree of life grow for the faithful. 
No blind, lame, or leper shall be found there ; the 
pious dead shall be restored to die no more; "and 
all shall be gathered in Paradise, with fulness of de- 
light all the days of the world, fed with bread from 
heaven ; and Messiah shall give his people peace." 

Still another form of belief was that the Messiah 
should come twice, — once as the Son of Joseph (or 
representative of the ten tribes) to expiate by his 
death the sin of Israel in the division of the king- 
dom ; who should lead the nation victoriously as far 
as the gates of Jerusalem, but be defeated there, and 
perish. at the hands of his foes: and again, as the 
Son of David, to represent the branch and reward 
the fidelity of Judah ; who should ride, as peaceful 
sovereign, the same ass that Abraham and Moses rode, 
and die at length in peace, leaving the restored king- 
dom to his children. 

Four distinct elements are more or less confusedly 
blended in the popular expectation as thus described : 
the general prophetic conception of a political De- 
liverer, most frequent and popular of all ; the super- 

* See Kevelation xxi. 16. 



398 THE MESSIAH. 

human Presence described in Daniel * as " the Son 
of Man coming in the clouds of heaven ; " the divine 
Word (of the Alexandrians), or Adam Kadmon (of 
the Cabbalists), in whom the divine image should be 
restored to man ; and the " Prophet, like to Moses," f 
who should complete the purpose of the Law, and make 
a transfigured or heavenly Israel the spiritual sover- 
eign of all people ; — while other features were added, 
as a capricious fancy devised, or as some fresh disas- 
ter or disappointment required fresh interpretation. 

Thus, derived from many sources and suited to 
every variety and extravagance of men's desire, the 
Messianic hope of the age was the more passionate 
and intense the less it was capable of consistent state- 
ment or clear analysis. Its diversity of ingredients 
political and religious, gave room to all latitude 
of exposition. The desperate patriotism of the Zeal- 
ots would make it the incitement to revolt, and en- 
terprises of fierce and hardy daring ; and would 
almost welcome any calamity or personal suffering 
that made its fulfilment seem more near. The He- 
rodian, finding security only in a strong government 
at home, and seeing but too clearly the impregnable 
strength of Rome, would pretend that in the brilliant 
and sagacious rule of Herod it had all the fulfilment 
the time made possible. The cautious and sceptic 
Sadducee would treat it as a popular delusion, and 
regard the fancies bound up in it as an heretical 
fable, with no foundation in the books he counted 
holy. The Pharisee would secretly indulge the hope, 
develop it into doctrine, expand and inculcate it as a 

* Chap. vii. 13, 14. t Deuteronomy xviii. 15. 



THE ESSENES. 399 

popular creed ; but in his place of power and advan- 
tage would shrink from the practical result it led to, 
and challenge, with a jealous fear and brooding hate, 
the claim of any who should win too warm tokens of 
the popular zeal. 

One small sect, or religious Order, among the Jews 
was better prepared to interpret the national hope in 
its purely religious sense. The Essenes were a 
community numbering in all some four thousand. 
Keeping remote from the corruption of great towns, 
they dwelt mostly in the wild country near the 
Dead Sea, some in solitary places, some in the small- 
er villages. If they took any share at all in the 
national observances, it was to protest against the 
bloody sacrifice and the ritual formalism. By peni- 
tence and prayer, by pious austerities and humble 
labour, it was their creed that the favour of heaven 
should be won. In doctrine they were closely allied 
with the Egyptian mystics, the Therapeutae, of 
whose name their own is an exact translation, — 
being Healers or Physicians, either in the literal or 
moral sense. Their practice of praying towards 
the East, (also found in the early Church,) their 
doctrine of angels and of the Divine Spirit, their 
asceticism and general abstinence from marriage, 
their mystic festival of communion, their voluntary 
poverty, and the simple regimen that enabled many 
of them to live more than a hundred years, — all 
liken them to those monastics of the Nile. Of all 
the Jews, their morality was most simple and 
austere ; their Sabbath most strictly kept ; their 
doctrine most remote from ritual or tradition ; their 



400 THE MESSIAH. 

reliance on Providence most implicit, amounting to 
a strict religious fatalism ; their faith in a life to 
come most ardent ; their temper most unshaken 
under persecution. Speculation and logic, says 
Philo, they leave to word-hunters ; their study is 
holiness, justice, and love. Oaths they refrained 
from, except the sacred vow of their Order, not to 
divulge their sacred books or the mysterious names of 
the angels. A long probation was exacted, through 
three preliminary grades, before the candidate 
could be initiated in the interior or highest circle. 
Whatever secret doctrine or practice may have 
been taught, it was their religion outwardly to heal 
the sick, support the weak, and venerate the old. 
Frugal and benevolent, they refused all use of 
money, subsisting on the scanty product of their 
husbandry. For as living in a " holy land " their 
task Was agriculture, instead of the petty handicrafts 
by which the Egyptian monastics throve. Neither 
wealth, personal indulgence, nor worldly honour 
could be their portion, but sadly to bewail and 
expi'ate their nation's sin. No evil would they 
ascribe to God, neither would they shed in sacrifice 
the blood of any creature. It was a mystical and 
symbolic sacrifice they rendered ; the body itself was 
their " sin-offering," which they might not anoint 
with oil,* — the prison of the soul, whose burden 
they might not augment by any luxury, or delight 
of sense. Spiritual gifts were the reward of their 
austerities ; a new line of prophets had risen among 

* Levit. v. 1 1 . The tree of life, according to these mystics, was the 
Olive ; as the tree of knowledge was the Vine. 



THEORIES RESPECTING THE ESSENES. 401 

them, dating as far back as the age of the Macca- 
bees ; and their superior sanctity was acknowledged 
among the sects that now divided the faith of Israel. 
Such was the community or sect of Essenes, as 
reported by writers of the period. Its real history, 
and especially its relation to the great religious 
revolution now impending, are matters of vague, 
perhaps hopeless conjecture. By many a religious 
affinity it seems allied with what we know of the 
early Christian Church, especially the sects of Ebion- 
ites and Nazarenes ; and the Catholic hierarchy has 
even been held to be derived from its religious 
orders. On the other hand, the utter silence of the 
Christian records, save in a few doubtful allusions,* 
makes it quite impossible to trace the degrees of that 
alliance, and leaves an unlimited space to theory and 
guess. Both ancient and modern surmise has identi- 
fied these pious recluses with the first Jewish Chris- 
tians. Some of the Greek fathers made thei^ name f 
equivalent to " Society of Jesus ; " and, a little 
altered,J it stands among the earliest in the obscure 
list of Christian heresies. A favourite rationalistic 
hypothesis has regarded Jesus himself as the con- 
fidential emissary of an " Essenian Lodge ; " while a 
more recent argument maintains that this was a 
secret society into which the Christians of Palestine 

* As, for example, the mode of journey and voluntary poverty 
enjoined on the apostles (Matt. x. 9) ; the doctrine of spiritual aid and 
guidance (v. 20) ; the commendation of celibacy (xix. 10; compare 
xxii. 30) ; and discredit of riches (xix. 21, 23) ; together with the cen- 
sure of the Pharisees and the temple service. 

t 'Eflro-cuoi, or 'icowu'ot. Epiphanius, Haeres. I. 2, 4, 5. 

X 'Of a-aloi. Ibid. 

z 



402 THE MESSIAH. 

resolved themselves a few years before the downfall 
of Jerusalem, to shelter their doctrine from perse- 
cution, or to save it from being overwhelmed and 
confounded in a political frenzy.* The whole mat- 
ter remains one of the riddles of history, — ever 
tempting a solution, and still unsolved. 

In its relation to the Christian doctrine, what Ju- 
daism was to the world this community seems to 
have been to the other Jewish sects.f As the Chris- 
tion monastic orders were a " church within the 
Church," so to these pious Hebrews it may have 
been given to guard the interior shrine of their na- 
tion's faith, from which the new spirit should pro- 
ceed; — "every good gift and every perfect gift" 
descending, through whatever channel, from a com- 
mon source. 

As a little secluded sect, indeed, they could only 
helplessly deplore the fanaticism and error that had 
clustered around the nation's hope, or the people's 
sin that kept the Divine purpose from being fulfilled, 
— possibly, afford the soil out of which a better faith 
might spring, or in which it might be nurtured. But 
the Divine gift itself is something quite aside from the 
formula or the mechanism of any sect. For any real 
agency in the coming " regeneration," they would 
have been as thoroughly inefficient as the Alexan- 
drians, but for the inspiration of a more positive pur- 
pose, and the blending of their ethical austerity with 

* See De Quincey, Historical and Critical Essays, Vol. I. The deci- 
sive answer to which seems to be the familiar mention of the Essenes 
by Philo, who could hardly have written later than A. D. 50. 

t See Gfrorer, " Jahrhundert des Heils." 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 403 

a popular faith. Compelled by their whole style of 
life and thought to give the Messianic hope a mysti- 
cal sense, — to make the religious life a " spiritual 
building," and the promised kingdom a reign of holi- 
ness, — their existence was an organized but vain 
protest against the wild and headlong frenzy into 
which their countrymen were ready to be plunged. 
And so it must remain aloof from popular sympa- 
thies, and powerless to any larger end, until the ener- 
gies spent in holding this frail dike against the tor- 
rent should be absorbed in the allegiance rendered 
to an inspired and 'guiding mind. 

It is at least plausible to associate with this ascetic 
and devout community the earlier training, if not the 
particular commission, of that Forerunner, who from 
a child " was in the deserts until the day of his shew- 
ing unto Israel." The water of Baptism, by which 
according to long custom aliens were admitted to re- 
ligious fellowship with Jews, became the symbol of 
the repentance preached by John. His stern and 
resolute temper, unsoftened during his orphan youth 
by the gentle disciplines and sympathies of home, 
likened him to the elder prophets, whose worthy suc- 
cessor the popular reverence at once declared him. 
His voice, crying in the wilderness, found a quick 
response from priests that served in the temple, and 
from the multitudes that thronged the banks of Jor- 
dan. "Art thou he that should come," they were 
all ready to ask, " or look we for another ? " John 
the Baptist was no reed shaken with the wind ; no 
courtier clad in soft raiment ; but a man equal to the 
best and bravest of woman born ; one to confront the 



404 THE MESSIAH. 

crafty and sensual Herod with the open charge of 
guilt ; one to forfeit his head in prison rather than 
withhold or withdraw where conscience marked the 
way ; a man noble and dauntless, yet of a temper too 
strict and narrowly austere to comprehend the real 
want of the time. He " came neither eating nor 
drinking, and men said, He hath a devil." The 
larger sympathies, the profounder and gentler life 
that marked the true Messiahship, he recognized but 
by anticipation and in part in the greater One that 
followed : and long after his death, a little sect still 
bore his name, and echoed his herald-call to repent- 
ance, without even asking whether the Hebrew hope 
was not already fulfilled. 

In Jesus of Nazareth the popular heart acknowl- 
edged its rightful King. Doubtless he shared those 
patriot hopes and longings, those thoughts, beliefs, 
and sacred associations, that made not only the na- 
tional heritage but the public religious education of 
the Jews. His home and his heart were among the 
people. " Galilee of the nations " was the nurse of 
world-wide sympathies and thoughts, as well as centre 
of the political fervour and religious zealotry that 
survived so many wrecks and changes of the state. 
With a lingering and patriotic fondness the son of 
Mary clung to the phrasing of those popular hopes 
which his clearer foresight must renounce, while his 
true Hebrew sympathy should make them the germ 
of nobler human hopes : it is as one sharing in the 
nation's heroic memories and religious life that he 
laments the ruin which cannot long be stayed from 
the beloved Jerusalem. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH. 405 

That Jesus himself, in his interior consciousness, 
was lifted to apprehend the dread and solitary grand- 
eur of his historic destiny, that he fully conceived 
the true and legitimate hope of his nation to be con- 
summated in himself, — that hope created by ages 
of prophecy, sustained through centuries of disaster, 
and now expanding to embrace the spiritual destinies 
of all mankind, — is not only the clear and evident 
reading of his life, it is the one thing without which 
that life can receive no intelligible interpretation. 
Imperatively disclaiming the assumption of personal 
merit or holiness as the ground of his authority, he 
as distinctly exalts the official dignity of the Messiah- 
ship, while asserting it for his own. Knowing well 
the fate to which it leads him, and that the Son of 
Man must be made " perfect through suffering," he 
never once abates that claim or wavers in it. The 
heavenly omens of his nativity, and a childhood 
watched by fond, motherly hopes, had nurtured this 
overwhelming conviction of his vocation and destiny, 
as Son of God and Deliverer of his people, which 
made so thoroughly a part of his maturer manhood.* 
That if he chose he might even have been sucli a 
Deliverer as they madly looked for, he seems to have 

* The struggle by which the popular Jewish hope was transformed 
in him into a purely spiritual purpose is shown symbolically in the 
scene of the Temptation, which is the Messianic encounter with the 
Adversary of Israel ; as the celestial sense in which the ancient He- 
brew faith was reproduced is symbolized in the Vision that shows him 
transfigured upon the mount with Moses and Elias. 

Again, what an appeal to the national memories of the Jew, recalling 
the pastoral youth of David and traditions of Jacob and Moses, lay in 
the story of the Messiah's birth among the shepherds of Bethlehem ! 

The " Visit of the Wise Men " may have some connection (obscured 



406* THE MESSIAH. 

believed, and hinted more than once, especially to- 
wards the mournful close of his ministry. And it 
was a clear and voluntary and noble sacrifice in 
which he laid down his life as the price of that 
"atonement" in which the heart of man should be 
reconciled to the truth and providence of the Father. 
Yet we may easily believe it to have been — as we 
find it in fact — with a certain reluctance and misgiv- 
ing that Jesus first directed the Messianic expecta- 
tions of the people upon himself. He forbore to 
stimulate in them what was at best a false and vin- 
dictive, and what proved a bitterly pernicious and 
fatal, hope. When they would " take him by force 
and make him a king," he withdrew to the solitude 
of mountain or wilderness ; he stilled the insane or 
eager clamour of demoniacs, or the grateful homage 
of those he healed of hopeless malady, by command- 
ing " that they should not make him known." But 
the hope was firmly embedded in the religious life 
and language of the day. It could not be contra- 
dicted or evaded : it might perhaps receive a higher 
and juster interpretation. The phrase " kingdom of 
heaven" he set himself, therefore, steadily to dis- 
engage from all the vindictive and fantastic images 
of Jewish fancy ; to make it mean to others what his 
clearer understanding and finer spiritual apprehen- 

in the present form of narrative) with the school of Magi or false proph- 
ets believed to have been established in the East by Balaam, the 
" Archimage ; " who, recognizing by magical arts the star of Jacob, 
predicted by their founder (Numbers xxiv. 17. See p. 65), had near- 
ly compassed the Messiah's death in his cradle. (Gfrorer.) In the Tal- 
mud, Jesus (son of Mary Magdalen) is a great magician and wonder- 
worker, who has stolen his magic formula from Egypt. 



MINISTRY OF JESUS. 407 

sion discerned in it ; to sketch, as it were, its bound- 
aries in the realm of the moral life. When one 
asks him if the kingdom shall immediately appear, 
he answers by saying that it comes not with observa- 
tion ; that men cannot say, Lo here ! or Lo there ! 
for it is within. It is for the meek, the merciful, the 
peacemakers, the poor in spirit, the pure in heart. 
It is like leaven, like seed sown in a field, like a hid- 
den pearl, like the impartial wages of labourers in a 
vineyard, like the return for a faithful use of money, 
like a marriage feast open by proclamation to all 
that are worthy and willing to enter, — like anything 
rather than what they hoped and craved. Whatever 
of the images or notions more familiar to the popular 
conception are adopted in his discourse, they are sub- 
dued to that main purpose, they but bridge the in- 
terval between the common thought and his.* In 
numberless ways he set himself thus to stem the swift 
and turbulent stream of his countrymen's desire, and 
teach the true meaning of the hope of Israel. 

His own name he would not at first suffer to be 
used in too near connection with that hope, or an- 
nounced as the Messiah of the coming kingdom ; 
yet assured as he was that the true culmination and 
completion of the Hebrew prophetic history were 
in himself, his claim became by degrees more public 
and explicit; and when he distinctly foresaw his 
own death as decreed and inevitable, he no longer 
scrupled to declare, in the most open manner, that 
he was the true Son of God, the Prophet foretold by 

* Unless one should except the parables and discourses recorded 
about the time of his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. 



408 THE MESSIAH. 

Moses, the expected Man. His death, he knew, when 
nothing else could do it, would break the spell of 
that charmed thought, that false hope, which stim- 
ulated the worst passion of the people, while it 
fettered their best religious life. " It was expedient 
that he should go away ; " since then and not before 
" another Comforter " might come, the spirit of 
Truth, and those who believed in him for his own 
sake might be guided to a better apprehension of the 
Unseen. During his lifetime he could be to them, 
at best, only the leader of a religious reform, the 
sincerest and best of Jewish teachers, the messenger 
(they trusted) of a deliverance daily and passion- 
ately longed for. It was after his departure that 
he became to them a spiritual Presence, the living 
manifestation of the Word of God, and the Saviour 
of the world. Once granting his Messianic claim, 
all the rest would follow in time of its own accord. 

But early associations lost their hold very slowly. 
To the first generation of believers the clearest 
notion of Christ's kingdom seems to have been, 
that he would presently reappear " in the clouds with 
power and great glory "as in the visions of Daniel ; 
and that the dazzling but incoherent imagery of the 
Hebrew dreams would yet be literally fulfilled in 
him. As surely as he was the true Messiah and the 
hope of Israel, so surely his Messianic work on earth 
was still unfinished. The vagueness of the Future 
made good the deficiency and disappointment of the 
Past. The historical lineaments of Jesus were pieced 
out with the features of the genuine Hebrew type of 
the Messiah. These superadded features were held 



SECOND COMING OF CHEIST. 409 

in reserve against the supposed immediate future ; 
and were made objective to the disciples' minds in the 
angelic declaration, " This same Jesus, which is taken 
up from you into heaven, shall so return in like man- 
ner as ye have seen him go into heaven," and in the 
apocalyptic imagery in which his coming is vaguely 
foretold in the doom impending over Israel. The 
spiritual office of the Messiah having been dis- 
charged, there remained the temporal, which could 
not be long delayed. Such was the early hope of the 
Jewish Christians, certified to their mind by the 
resurrection of their Lord. It served a temporary 
but most important use, as a stay or scaffolding to 
their imperfect faith in the spiritualized and risen 
Christ, for the space of perhaps a generation, — when 
it fell, with the utter ruin of the Jewish state. 
Then, and not till then, Christianity was released 
from the narrowness of Hebrew forms, and became 
an independent faith.* 

Meanwhile two distinct influences were at work 
in the Church, to bring this primitive form of 
Christian belief round to that with which we are 
historically familiar : first, the practical demand of 
the Christian organization, which continually thrust 
aside the fanatic anticipation of the future, in obe- 
dience to the instant claim of the present, — so 
constantly exhibited in the writings of Paul, com- 
posed during the first generation of believers ; and, 

* The bitterness with which this change was resisted, and the obsti- 
nacy of the protest against the Pauline doctrine, are put in abundant 
relief in some of the early Petrine writings, the " Clementines," which 
make Simon Magus a parody, or a mythical pseudonyme, of St. Paul. 
18 



410 THE MESSIAH. 

secondly, the spontaneous development of a Christian 
philosophy within the Church, with the instinctive 
effort to assimilate its tone and terminology with the 
intellectual habit of the age, — so conspicuous in 
the writings of the second generation, especially in 
those ascribed to John. Hence the gentle and (as it 
were) unconscious transition from the style of repre- 
sentation found in the first three Evangelists to that 
given in the fourth ; as afterwards, in successive 
phases, in the later Alexandrian schools, — by Clem- 
ent in the second century, Sabellius in the third, and 
Athanasius in the fourth. Thus the Church doctrine 
was gradually brought into a shape to match the 
most arrogant forms of Gentile philosophy, though 
without yielding the point of generic difference 
which makes one a subtile scheme for the under- 
standing, and the other a religion profoundly practi- 
cal in the life. The Christology of the second and 
third centuries was run easily into the mould pre- 
pared for it by the entire development of Greek 
and Oriental thought, — from which it was taken, 
almost without a flaw, by the Xicsean Council, in the 
form at once adopted by the Latin Church. 

By these stages of transition, and in strict accord- 
ance with historical conditions already found for it, 
the Hebrew Messianic hope was transformed into a 
doctrine which has had perhaps a profounder influ- 
ence on human life and thought than every other, 
— the doctrine, namely, that God did descend upon 
earth and dwell among men in the person of Jesus 
of Nazareth ; whose word was the authoritative found- 
ation of belief, and his death the literal sacrifice for 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 411 

the world's salvation. The religious need of the time 
was satisfied by a faith embracing these conditions : 
that it was faith in a divine Person, whom an increas- 
ing reverence identified at length with the Supreme 
Being himself ; that it was engrafted on a tradition, 
conceived according to a pre-existing type, and made 
part of an already living faith ; and that it was finally 
cast in a form that harmonized it with the religious 
speculations of the cultivated world. 

Still further, this faith became the centre and 
rallying-point of a powerful organization of the re- 
ligious life. The Church polity, first inherited from 
the Hebrew synagogue, and borrowing many a feature 
from Jewish models, became the regulating power 
of men's religious life and discipline. It grew in 
time to be the nucleus of a powerful hierarchy, that 
for a thousand years guided the destinies of civiliza- 
tion. It formed the bridge across the dark gulf of bar- 
barism between the empire of Rome and the states 
of Christian Europe. Not only the customs of the 
Synagogue, but the elaborate order of the Jewish 
Priesthood, was adopted in the Christian Church.* 
Thus the new religion allied itself with the still 
powerful traditions and institutions of antiquity ; and 
the ecclesiastical foundation borrowed from Judaea 
sustained a structure, aptly enough termed Cath- 
olic, in which Etruscan ritual and Roman discipline, 
blended with a philosophy wrought out by Grecian 
intellect, gave new and powerful embodiment to the 
faith of Galilee. 

* For the impulse given to the growth of the hierarchy by the throng- 
ing of the Jewish Christians to Rome, after the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, see Gfrorer, Eccl. Hist., Vol. I. pp. 253-277. 



412 THE MESSIAH. 

So fruitful and profound, in its influence on the 
after destinies of mankind, beyond every other ele- 
ment of antiquity, was this final form taken by the 
old Hebrew faith. Historically regarded, Jesus is 
uplifted on the great wave formed by the confluence 
of three main courses of ancient life and thought, — 
the Hebrew, Oriental, and Greek, — all embraced in 
the imperial sway of Rome. His life, as the fulfilment 
of Hebrew Messianic prophecy, becomes the central 
and pivotal fact in the annals of mankind. However 
it be interpreted, the doctrine of the Church remains, 
that in it met all the separate threads of human de- 
velopment : so that, religiously regarded, it becomes 
the great revelation of God in human life ; and, his- 
torically, the isthmus of two great continents, — the 
connecting link between the ancient and modern 
world. 



The historical significance of the Hebrew race and 
faith is therefore now exhausted. It becomes an un- 
distinguishable element in a structure far more rich, 
various, and comprehensive. The history has hence- 
forth only the dreary and tragic interest that attends 
the catastrophe of a people's life. For a few years, 
by favour of Caligula, Herod Agrippa, grandson 
of Mariamne, was king of united Palestine (A. D. 
37-44). Prom the crazy young despot, whose inti- 
mate companion he had been in the vices and pleas- 
ures of the capital, he won for his people the re- 
peal of an edict to worship the emperor's statue, and 
so deferred a little longer the last struggle of the 



HEROD AGRIPPA. — ROMAN GOVERNORS. 413 

Jews' despair. Though sensual and vainglorious, 
and prompt to lift his hand in persecution of the 
Church, he inherited enough of Hebrew feeling along 
with his Maccabsean blood to make his reign a time 
of general contentment and prosperity, until his sud- 
den death in Csesarea,* when the line of Roman 
governors returned, and violence began anew. 

The revolt of Theudas was provoked by the rigor- 
ous policy of Cuspius Fadus, which offered too sharp 
a contrast to the indolent indulgence of Agrippa 
(A. D. 44). Theudas was one of the "false Christs 
and false prophets," who from this time forth arose to 
deceive many. Promising his followers a miraculous 
passage of the Jordan and certain victory, he was sur- 
prised by a company of soldiers, and beheaded. Some 
relics of old sedition were rooted out also by Tiberius 
Alexander, — an apostate Jew, nephew of the Alex- 
andrian Philo, — the patriot sect of Galileans begin- 
ning (it appears) to be formidable once more. Under 
his successor, Cumanus, a systematic course of insult 
to the Jewish faith, aggravated by a quarrel at the 
Passover, and the " accidental " death of some twenty 
thousand, led towards the last desperate revolt. Cu- 
manus fell into disgrace by his misconduct in a revival 
of the old feud between Samaritans and Jews ; and 
the freedman Pelix, " husband of three queens," ruled 
for nine years, with " the authority of a king and the 
disposition of a slave " (A. D. 52 - 61). " The affairs 
of the Jews now grew worse and worse continually ; 
again the country was filled with robbers and impos- 
tors, who led the multitude astray." Patriotism, 

* See Acts xii. 21 - 25. 



414 THE MESSIAH. 

now in its last extremity, took the form of an or- 
ganized conspiracy. Bands of Sicarii, or secret and 
pledged Assassins, made an invisible Committee of 
Public Safety, and by a system of Terrorism headed 
the popular hate towards Rome. Daily executions 
did not stay the course of public disorder. An ad- 
venturer from Egypt led four thousand men * into 
the wilderness, and then escaped, leaving them a 
prey to Roman vengeance. Feuds between Jew and 
Gentile grew more bitter, until Felix too was recalled. 
Festus died in office, too soon to achieve the reconcil- 
iation he sought. Under Albinus, matters fast grew 
worse. Besides old complaints, there were now mis- 
erable contentions and oppressions among the priest- 
hood, of whom the lower orders most likely shared 
too deeply in the dangerous temper of the populace. 
Many of the inferior Levites, it is said, actually per- 
ished of destitution, their superiors withholding their 
slender benefices. The people were clamorous at the 
loss of civil rights, the result of bloody riots in Caesa- 
rea ; and troops of robbers were set loose by Albinus, 
out of recklessness or else revenge, when the general 
complaint got him removed from Palestine. So all 
was ripening for the great revolt. 

The last envoy whom Nero sent to vex the rebel- 
lious province was Floras (A. D. 64), a man so 
meanly and sordidly rapacious, that some carried a 
basket, asking " alms for the beggar ; " and the crowd 
insulted him openly in the streets by name, hate 
casting out fear. He took a malignant delight in 
exasperating the popular passion that should give 

* Or thirty thousand, says Josephus. 



FLOKUS. — KING AGRIPPA. 415 

ampler sweep to Roman revenge, which his soldiers 
seconded by studious mockery of the Jewish ritual.* 
With ostentatious contempt and cruelty, he mocked 
the embassies of peace sent him by the city, and 
made their humble remonstrance the occasion of fresh 
massacres. When Agrippa and his sister Bernice, 
son and daughter of the late king, besought him 
mercy, he answered by the scourging and beheading 
of their countrymen before their very eyes. Agrippa, 
the last inheritor of Jewish royal blood, — endowed 
by the Romans with the regal title, and an outlying 
district of territory as well as the protectorate of the 
" holy places," — staked all his popularity in a last 
eloquent but fruitless appeal to the citizens, whom 
tyranny had driven frantic. They listened patiently 
as he represented the overwhelming force of Rome 
and the hopelessness of revolt, till he spoke of sub- 
mission for the time to Florus ; when at that name 
his voice was drowned in the angry clamour. Forced 
to withdraw, he left the misruled and misguided city 
to its fate. 

Though some were still for compromise, and fol- 
lowed Agrippa' s counsel to observe the forms of cus- 
tomary homage, yet the bolder party suddenly found 
themselves in power. They ventured the decisive 
step of refusing the customary sacrifice in Caesar's 
name, thus renouncing their allegiance in the most 
offensive way possible. They sent and surprised the 
garrison at Masada, which was Herod's stronghold in 

* Especially by mimicking the sacrifice of a sparrow for leprosy, 
an insult calling to mind the old tradition of the uncleanness of the 
race. 



416 THE MESSIAH. 

extremity, near the Dead Sea ; and by an unhoped- 
for success, inspiring a fatal confidence, they routed 
the provincial forces of Gallus, who had nearly taken 
possession of Jerusalem. Even the more cautious 
now saw that the hope of peace was past. Unless 
open traitors, they must win by the sword any future 
terms of safety. Ananus the high-priest became pro- 
visional Dictator. The city was strongly fortified, 
the country divided into military districts. Galilee 
— the most strongly intrenched in natural defences 
and the vehement patriotism of its people — must 
expect the first brunt of attack. Its governor and 
chief-captain was Josephus the historian, a man now 
thirty years of age. He had belonged to the peace 
party hitherto, and after one campaign he surren- 
dered, and sided again heartily with the Romans, 
testifying no small animosity against the new chiefs 
of the sedition. But for once he showed himself a 
skilful and bold commander. The two months' siege 
of Jotapata exhausted the resources of Jewish inge- 
nuity, backed by an unconquerable hate : its fall, 
soon followed by that of Tiberias and Gamala, sealed 
the doom of all Palestine. 

The revolt had been found so serious that Vespa- 
sian, the ablest general of the empire, was sent to 
quell it with an army of sixty thousand men, — such 
a force as Rome had employed only against the most 
powerful kingdoms. The life had to be crushed from 
the ill-fated province drop by drop ; and at so for- 
midable cost that Vespasian fell back, to let dissen- 
sion and famine do his work, rather than assault 
the walls and towers of Jerusalem. The two years' 



SIEGE OF JEKUSALEM. 417 

partial respite given by the disorders at Rome that 
followed the death of Nero were employed by the 
Romans in securing the remoter districts ; by the 
Jewish chiefs only in bitter strife among themselves, 
and wanton ravage, that made the defence more 
hopeless. When Vespasian, now emperor, sent his 
son Titus to the siege, the temple, the sacred court, 
and the city were held each as a separate fortress by 
three armed factions, each at deadly war with both 
the others, uniting only to cut off the last hope of 
peace by the massacre of the priestly body. Only in 
the utmost peril was party hate changed to emulous 
boldness, in manning the breach or fighting in the 
trenches. 

Throughout the siege, the sacrifice at the great 
altar went on daily undisturbed, amidst the terrible 
storm of engines, and in courts that flowed with the 
blood of victim, priest, and worshipper, in a common 
stream. Starving wretches that crept out to pluck 
roots and weeds were forced back or slain ; if they had 
gathered anything, it was snatched from them by 
violence ; or, escaping to the camp, some were torn 
open by the savage Arabs to hunt for gold and jewels 
they had swallowed, others crucified by Titus, as 
many as five hundred in a day, till " there was no 
wood for the crosses, or space to plant them." The 
glens below were rank with unburied corpses, hurled 
from the walls, — a horrible but needful order of the 
military police. A mother, driven crazy by the bar- 
barity of the plunderers and the rage of famine, 
killed and devoured her own child " secretly, for 
her utter want." Every tree within twelve miles of 

18=* AA 



418 THE MESSIAH. 

Jerusalem was cut down for military engines, and 
not an olive, say the Jews, was left in all the land. 

Starvation, murder, pestilence, torture, assault, — 
all were endured for a ghastly period of eight months, 
and still the Zealot faction would not yield. To the 
last they looked for that " sign from heaven " which, 
when the measure of calamity was full, should bring 
victory and revenge. It was treason as well as in- 
fidelity to despair of the altar and holy city. 

At length* the walls were broken down, the strong 
towers seized or undermined, the streets filled with 
the slaughter of the populace, the temple set on fire 
in the blind fury of the soldiery. Jerusalem was no 
more. A ploughshare was passed over the founda- 
tion. The site of city and sanctuary was sown with 
salt. Such sacred vessels as escaped the flames were 
brought to Rome by Titus, where their mouldering 
forms still decorate his arch of triumph. A hundred 
thousand captives were sent to the slave market or 
amphitheatre ; and for every captive, more than 
fifteen are said to have perished in the war,^ — 
upwards of a million in Jerusalem alone. All 
Palestine was set to sale by Vespasian. The two 
shekels of temple-money paid by every Hebrew man 
must go to rebuild the shrine of Jupiter of the 
Capitol ; and no Jew might visit the sacred ruins on 
pain of death. 

Of the Zealots, some fled to the strong fortress 
Masada, where, after a short resistance, they set fire 
to the tower, and perished with their families in the 
flames ; some made their way to Alexandria and 

* October, A. D. 70. 



DISPEESION OF THE JEWS. 419 

Cyrene, with the vain hope of holding out the 
contest a little longer ; but most were slaughtered 
with their chiefs, — even women and children smiling 
in the midst of torture, and defying the Gentile 
conqueror with their indomitable faith. Such as 
had taken no share in the great rebellion, together 
with the little sect of Christians,* still remained in 
possession of the villages ; and when the storm of 
war was blown past, remained there unmolested. 
The Sanhedrim, through its ten " Sittings " from 
* place to place, like the Ark at the ruin of the first 
temple, lost little of its former dignity or authority. 
The line of Rabbins was continued in Tiberias for 
many years, under the " Patriarch of the West," 
who still held spiritual headship over a dispersed and 
exiled nation. In touching memorial of the desola- 
tion, an ornament of turrets and battlements, called 
the "golden city," was worn by Jewish women as a 
head-dress, in mourning for Jerusalem, — perhaps as 
a pledge that it should be restored. 

Such was the issue of the false and fatal hope 
which had grown out of the Divine promise of the 
Messiah. After many transmutations, it came at 
last to be a mere political frenzy. The tendencies 
that might have held it in check were drawn away 
by the Christian society. To the loyal Jew, of what- 
ever sect, there was left no hope but in the inde- 
pendence of his native land. Nothing but a pow- 
erful fanaticism could have sustained the audacity 
of that hope. " Even the most peaceful mystic, who 

* Ebionites or Nazarenes, including, as is probable, the relics of the 
Essenes. 



420 THE MESSIAH. 

expected from his Adam-Logos the renewal of Para- 
dise, still had in his eye the fall of the Roman power. 
There was the particular grief that touched them all. 
But how resist the arms of Rome ? What a distance 
between the legions of the world-empress and the 
petty forces of a population of some few millions, 
crowded in a corner of Asia ! The Jewish scribes 
and Levites had in the Sanhedrim, almost to the 
outbreak of the war, a certain share of administra- 
tion in state affairs. Political power has always 
been the school of political wisdom. One can never 
better learn men than in ruling them. May there 
not have been among these Jews in power some who 
saw that the Messianic hopes of their nation rested 
on a groundless fantasy, and pointed to an impossi- 
bility ? Certainly there were such. Not only the 
records of their faith, but the history itself shows it. 
These priests would play the city and sanctu- 
ary into the hands of the Romans, to save both ; for 
they despaired of the future issue of the war. They 
hoped not at all, at least not heartily, in the future. 
Still they helped to spread the delusion among their 
people. Doubtless it was to save the nationality, 
more and more menaced by Rome, the devourer of 
nations, and to hold up in terrorem to the successors 
of Caesar the fiercely kindled popular hope. But, as 
is so often the case with a priesthood, they did not 
themselves believe in what they preached. When 
the storm broke forth, and their great possession was 
in peril, they fell back like cowards. Hence the 
sword of the determined Zealots justly struck their 
guilty heads. One should not play with a nation's 



DEFEAT OF THE MESSIANIC HOPE. 421 

enthusiasm ! The division between chiefs and priest- 
hood inflicted the heaviest damage on the Jews, and 
most contributed to the fatal result of the war. Had 
the Levites and their adherents thrown their whole 
weight into the scale, to recognize a bold warrior 
from the popular ranks as the Messiah, all would 
have submitted to him, and the chosen one might 
have carried the united strength of the nation 
against the foreign foe, — instead of as many Mes- 
siahs rising up as there were ambitious leaders, who 
conflicted with each other to the greatest injury of 
all, adding the miseries of internal feud to those 
of foreign war. Had the Jews under Vespasian 
acted with the same united energy as in the revolt 
under Hadrian, the struggle would have been a 
formidable one ; and their Messiah might perhaps 
have been for imperial what Hannibal was for con- 
sular Rome." * 

After the thorough and systematic uprooting by 
Vespasian, there was no more a visible centre and 
home of the Jewish nationality ; yet in its several 
dispersions or " captivities " the scattered Israel re- 
tained something of the same slumbering fire. Be- 
fore the dreadful tempest swept over Judah, like dis- 
aster had befallen the colonists in Babylonia and 
Egypt.f In Rome, in Cyrene, in Antioch, there were 

* Gfrorer, " Jahrhundert des Heils," Vol. II. pp. 439-441. 

t The recorded massacres of the Jews at the commencement of the 
wars were, in Babylon, 50,000, in Alexandria, 50,000, in Cresarea, 
20,000, in Ascalon, 2,500, in Ptolemais, 2,000, in Scythopolis, 13,000, 
in Damascus, 10,000, besides that of their chief men in Tyre, Hippo, 
and Gadara, and of uncertain numbers in other Syrian towns. 



422 THE MESSIAH. 

but various degrees of the same wanton cruelty. And 
long after Jerusalem was desolate, " so that one would 
not even know where its forts and walls had been," 
flashes of desperate resistance broke forth, such as to 
renew the ancient terror of the Hebrew name. 

The policy of Trajan, statesmanly and severe, was 
to guard well the boundaries of the empire, — now 
beginning to be seriously threatened by barbarians, — 
and reduce it at home more thoroughly to a uniform 
central rule. Provoked by fresh cruelties, and a con- 
flict in which, it is said, every Jew in Alexandria 
was slain, a furious outbreak took place in Cyrene 
(A. D. 115). The Jews slaughtered of their fellow- 
colonists no less than two hundred and twenty thou- 
sand ; and, with savage instincts stimulated by the 
fanatic interpretation of old prophecy,* devoured frag- 
ments of the flesh, stained their faces with the blood, 
and wore the bleeding entrails as trophies upon their 
shoulders. In Cyprus the slaughter was even greater ; 
and the insurrection was only quelled by the destruc- 
tion of half a million Jews. These atrocities took 
place just when the Roman Empire was in its merid- 
ian splendour, under, perhaps, the ablest of its rulers, 
in what has been called the golden period of human 
welfare. Now it was resolved to root out the last 
remnant of the invincible and hated faith. Not even 
in case of shipwreck could a Jew set foot in Cyprus, 
on pain of death. Circumcision, the Sabbath wor- 
ship, and reading of the Law were forbidden ; and 
a Roman colony, with a temple to Jupiter, was to 
occupy the sacred heights of Zion. 

* Zechariah ix. 15. 



BAR-COCHAB. 423 

Hadrian, "by turns an excellent prince, a ridiculous 
sophist, and a jealous tyrant," * visited Judaea in his 
imperial journey of curiosity and reform (A. D. 131). 
His sceptic temper was not likely to respect the rem- 
nants of Jewish " superstition " still assiduously cher- 
ished there, nor his wary statesmanship to overlook 
the perilous fanaticism lurking under it. The very 
next year, the last great revolt broke out with the 
obstinate intrepidity of despair. Avoiding now too 
late the fatal error of the former war, the sacred 
college at Tiberias, with Rabbi Akibah, their noblest 
and saintliest,f unanimously recognized as Messiah 
the young disciple whose energy and religious zeal 
placed him at the head of the insurrection, — Simon, 
whose mystic title was Bar-cochab, " Son of the Star." J 
Once more the horrors of war and religious persecu- 
tion raged through Palestine. The unhappy rem- 
nant of Jewish Christians suffered miserably : — a 
little heretic sect, scorned by Christians as still hold- 
ing Jesus to have been a man, hideously tortured by 
fanatic Jews as followers of the Nazarene, and con- 
founded by the Eomans in one ruin with their rebel- 
lious countrymen. For a time the sudden fury of 
the storm swept everything before it. Bar-cochab 
assumed the public title of Prince of Judah, and 
coined money bearing the device of his Messianic 
reign. He even seized and garrisoned the capital, 

* Gibbon. 

t His fame was attested by no less than 24,000 pupils. " For forty 
years he had been an illiterate peasant, forty years he gave to the study 
of the Law, and forty years he ministered to Israel. " The accounts of 
his death are various. 

X Numbers xxiv. 17. See page 65. 



424 THE MESSIAH. 

holding it for two years against the Romans. It was 
not till (according to the story) five hundred and 
eighty thousand had fallen, armed and fighting, — 
among them the false Messiah himself, and the aged 
Akibah, who served as his shield-bearer, — that the 
fury of the revolt was stayed.* Jerusalem, with the 
title JElia Capitolina, was made a Roman town. 
Strange edifices crowned the sacred heights, and the 
localities of ancient story were utterly lost. Nothing 
but the site and name, the everlasting hills and the 
Syrian sky, remains to the sacred capital of Judah. 

Since the last dispersion, the name of Israel is lost 
to human history. A scattered and long-suffering 
remnant, a people of zealous and indomitable faith, 
more tenacious than ever of traditions and rites that 
set them apart from all ; the traders and slave-mer- 
chants of Barbaric times, outcasts from the Feudal 
System, first victims of the Crusades and the Inquisi- 
tion, clinging still through long centuries to the hope 
that once and again had plunged them in so deep 
disaster,! — they have lived on, a singular and death- 

* The Jews say of the slaughter at Bitter, the last stronghold of 
Bar-cochab, that the horses waded in blood up to their nostrils ; there 
were slain 400,000 in a day, and Hadrian walled a vineyard of sixteen 
miles about with dead bodies to a man's height ; the brains of three 
hundred infants were dashed upon one stone, and the torrent of blood 
floated the bodies of the slain down to the sea, a distance of forty 
miles. Thousands were sold, " cheap as horses," under the terebinth- 
tree that stood by Abraham's tent ; and Akibah (who at the tribunal 
of the victor forgot not the hour of prayer) was barbarously flayed 
alive. 

t Of many impostors assuming the title of Messiah, the last of any 
note, Sabbathai-Sevi, appeared in Smyrna in 1648, where he figured 
for eighteen years. At length he was brought before the Sultan, who, 
in the prompt way the Turks have of convincing infidels, offered him 



MODERN JEWS. 425 

less monument of the Life that had its home of old 
in Palestine. Hate, persecution, contempt, suffered 
from Christian and Mussulman alike ; the cruelties 
of sovereign or priesthood safely spent on a victim 
helpless and cursed already by the popular odium ; 
the tortures of a rapacious exchequer and the tor- 
tures of a holy Inquisition, — all combined have not 
been able to destroy or alter this hidden stream of a 
religious nationality. In its solitary channel it has 
continued to flow on, strangely unaffected by events 
that have remoulded, once and again, the entire 
face of the civilized world. Untouched by political 
changes, uncaring for Gentile culture and erudition, 
unmingled in the thousand cross-currents that inter- 
sect it, steadily and mysteriously this stream of a 
people's life flows on. The nation of Israel lies, as it 
were, latent and diffused among the populations of 
the earth, — still known by its visible marks of sep- 
aration, and still, to trust its own declaration, pre- 
pared, when the summons shall come, to throng to 
the banner of Judah, and see the fulfilment of its 
ancient prophecy in the restoring of its dominion 
under its long-promised and still-expected Messiah. 

This also the Jews have recorded in the peculiar 
manner of their tradition. When Rabbi Akibah, say 
their writers, was once passing with some of his 
scholars near the broken walls of Jerusalem, they 
saw a fox which ran out from the most holy place, 

the choice of an ordeal of three poisoned arrows, death, or conversion. 
He discreetly chose the last, and became a Mussulman ; but his fol- 
lowers, accepting his assurance that the Messiah must be " numbered 
among the transgressors," clung to their belief in him, which subsists, 
it is said, in one Jewish sect even to this day. 



426 THE MESSIAH. 

and hid among the ruins ; and his scholars wept, but 
Eabbi Akibah laughed. And they asked him, " Shall 
we not weep when we see the desolation of the city, 
and all the calamity which our prophets have fore- 
told?" But he replied, "And shall I not rather 
laugh when I see these things ? for while those words 
were not yet fulfilled which foretold the destruction 
of our people and our holy temple, we might doubt 
if they came from God ; but now we know that they 
are true, and that the God of Israel liveth, and his 
people shall be redeemed." 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OE THE LATEK MONAKCHY. 



[Ewald's dates. Events marked f are found only in Chronicles.] 



b. c. Judah. b. c. Israel. 

985. Kehoboam (17 y.) Eeturn of 985. Jeroboam (22 y.) Royal cities 

Levites. Shishak's invasion. built. Golden calves, at Dan 

Fortified cities. and Bethel. 

968. Abijam (3 y.) f Disastrous war with Israel. 
965. Asa (41 y.) Reform. Fortifl- Ahijah's warning. 

cations and equipments; f army 963. Nadab (2 y.) Murdered by 

of 580,000. 961. Baasha (24 y.) 
Wars between Israel and Judah. 

Treasures sent to Damascus. Attack of Syrians. Ramah de- 

f Rout of 1,000,000 Ethiopians. serted. 

t Asa suppresses idolatry in Israel. 

f Great religious festival. 937. Elah (2 y.) Murdered. 

t Warning of Hanani against 931. Omri (12 y.) Samaria built. 

Syrian alliance. 919. Ahab (22 y.) Baal-worship. 
917. jEHOSHAPHAT(25y.) Reforms. [Acts of Elijah.'] Siege of Sa- 

Peace with Ahab. Viceroy in maria by Benhadad. Defeat of 

Edom. Commerce, f Military Syrians. Fresh invasion, east 

and religious establishment. of Jordan. 

Alliance against Syrians. Ahab slain. 

f Attack of Moab, etc., repulsed 897. Ahaziah (2 y.) Revolt of Moab. 

with great slaughter. Killed by a fall. 

893. Jehoram (8 y.) Revolt of 895. Jehoram(12 y.) Idolatry sup- 

Moab. f Invasion of Arabs, &c. pressed. Devastation of Moab. 

885. Ahaziah (1 y.) Murdered by [Acts of Flisha.] 

883. Athaliah (6 y.) Baal wor- 883. Jehu (28 y.) Massacres. Gold- 
ship established. en calves retained. 

877. Joash (40 y.) Repairs of temple. Joash bribes Hazael, who devas- 
tates Gilead, &c. 

Dissensions with priests. 855. Jehoahaz (17 y.) Deliverance 

f Murder of Zechariah. from the invasion. 

Joash slain by conspiracy. 839. Jehoash (16 y.) Death of 

837. Amaziah (29 y.) Conquest of Elisha. Invasion of Moabites. 

Edom. f Army of 300,000. Victories over Syrians. 



428 CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. 

Judah. Israel. 

t Amaziah rejects alliance of Israel, who smite 3,000 cities. 
Challenges Jehoash. Jerusalem pillaged. 
[Prophecies of Joel, in time of Amaziah.] 
Amaziah slain by conspiracy. 823. Jeroboam II. (41 y.) Restores 
808. Uzziah (52 y.) Eecovers Elath. former bounds of Israel. Recov- 

f Victories over Arabs, &c. ; ers Damascus. [Amos, Hosea.] 

tribute from Ammon ; building 770. Zachariah and Shallum, 
of towers; army 307,500. murdered. 

Dissensions with priests. 769. Menahem (10 y.) Barbarities. 

[Visions and early prophecies Assyrian invasion of Pul. 

of Isaiah.] 759. PEKAHiAH(2y.) Murdered by 

757. JoTHAM(16y.) Victories over 757. Pekah (20 y.) Conquest of 
Ammonites. Fortifications. Galilee by Tiglath Pileser. 

Judah threatened by league of Pekah with Rezin. 
740. Ahaz (16 y.) Idolatries. [Messianic predictions of Isaiah.] 
Invasion of Pekah and Rezin ; loss of Elath. 
f 120,000 slain ; 200,000 captives restored. 
Ahaz bribes Assyrians, who invade Damascus. 
724. Hezekiah (29 y.) Abolishes 728. Hoshea (9 y.) Invasion of 
idolatry. Shalmanezer. Tribute to him. 

[Micah. Prophecies and polit- Conspires with Egypt. Three 

ical influence of Isaiah.] years' siege of Samaria. 

719. Captivity of Ten Tribes. Samaritan Colony. 

Invasion of Judah by Sennacherib ; his host destroyed. 

Hezekiah's sickness. Embassy from Babylon. 

Public works, f Solemn purification of temple. 
695. Manasseh (55 y.) Idolatry and persecutions. 

f Taken captive to Babylon. His repentance. 
640. Amon (2 y.) His idolatry; death by conspiracy. 
638. Josiah (31 y.) Repair of temple. Finding of 0*e Law. 

Inroad of Scythians. Josiah slain at Megiddo. 

[Zephaniah, Obadiah, Habakhuh, Jeremiah.] 
608. Jehoahaz (3m.) dies a captive in Egypt. 

Jehoiakim (11 y.) Tributary to Pharaoh. Conquered by Neb- 
uchadnezzar. Revolts. Chaldee invasion. 
597. Jehoiachin (3m.) taken to Babj^lon with 10,000 captives. 
596. Zedekiah (11 y.) Revolts. Invasion of Nebuchadnezzar. 

Siege of Jerusalem. [Jeremiah.] Jerusalem taken. Gedaliah 

assassinated. Flight of many Jews to Egypt. 
586-536. The Captivity in Babylon. 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. 



429 



AFTER THE CAPTIVITY. 



B. c. 

536. Edict of Cyrus. Return of the 

Jews from Babylon. 
516. Dedication of the Temple. 
459. Mission of Ezra. 
445. Administration of Nehemiah. 
366. Murder of Joshua. 
332. Alexander in Jerusalem. 
320. Conquest of Judaea by Ptolemy. 
300. Administration of Simon the 

Just. 
230. Joseph the Tax-gatherer. 
205-198. Antiochus the Great in 

Judaea. 
175. Antiochus Epiphanes. Helio- 

dorus. 
170. Persecutions of Antiochus 

Epiphanes. 
166. Judas the Maccabee. 
160. Jonathan. 
143. Simon. 
135. John Hyrcanus. 
107. Aristobulus. 



B. C. 

106. Alexander Jannaeus. 

79. Alexandra. 

70. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. 

63. Jerusalem taken by Pompey 
48. Administration of Antipater 
37 - 4. Herod the Great. 

20 to A. D. 50. Philo of Alexandria* 

A. D. 

6. Judaea a Roman Province. 
25. Administration of Pontius Pilate. 
30. Crucifixion of Jesus. 
37 - 44. Reign of Herod Agrippa. 

64. Administration of Gessius Flo- 
ras. 

66 Jewish Revolt. 

68. Subjugation of Galilee. 

70. Siege of Jerusalem by Titus. 

115. Jewish Revolts in Cyrene and 

Cyprus. 
132. Revolt under Bar-Cochab. 
135. Jerusalem destroyed. 



INDEX. 



The Patriarchs, 1-35. Palestine and its Inhabitants, 1. Oanaan- 
ites, 6. Family of Shem, 9. Abraham, 11. Destruction of Sodom, 18. 
Isaac, 21. Jacob, 23. Israel in Egypt, 31. The Hycsos, 32. 

Moses, 36 - 72. Traditions of his Life, 36. Egyptian Bondage, 38. The 
Exodus, 42. Passage of the Red Sea, 45. Song of Moses, 46. Sinai, 49. 
Laws of Moses, 50. The Wandering, 60. ' Balaam, 64. Death of Moses, 
66. Conquest of Canaan, 67. 

The Judges, 73-112. Settlement of the Tribes, 75. Oracle of Jacob, 
78. Invasions, 83. Song of Deborah, 84. Gideon, 88. Jephthah, 89. 
Philistines, 90. Samson, 92. Growth of National Spirit, 95. Eli, 98. 
Samuel, 99. Schools of the Prophets, 102. Saul, 105. 

David, 113-144. Early History, 115. Among the Philistines, 121. 
At Hebron, 122. Ishbosheth, 124. Conquests, 125. Household, 130. 
Absalom's Revolt, 132. Census of Tribes, 136. Character of David, 139. 

Solomon, 145 - 170. Acts of arbitrary power, 146. Alliances and 
Commerce, 149. Temple and Ritual, 151. Royal Establishment, 158. 
Wisdom, 160. Foreign Religious Rites, 162. Oppression, 164. Jeroboam, 
166. The divided Kingdom, 168. 

The Kings, 171-207. First Period, 172. Israel and Judah, 173. Proph- 
ets of Israel, 177. Elijah and Elisha, 179. Massacres of Jehu, 182. Sec- 
ond Period, 183. Regency of Priests in Judah, 184. Prophets of Judah, 
186. Assyrians, 188. Fall of Samaria, 190. Hezekiah and Isaiah, 191. 
Third Period, 195. Manasseh's Idolatries, 197. Josiah's Reform, 200. 
His Death, 203. Zedekiah's Revolt, 205. Fall of Jerusalem, 207. 

The Law, 208 - 251. Syrian Customs and Superstitions, 209. Early 
Condition of Hebrews, 219. Civil Code, 222. Ritual, 228. Festivals, 234. 
Levitical Institutions, 244. Priesthood, 246. 

The Prophets, 252-280. The Prophetical Office, 253. Religious 
Tendencies of the East, 255. The Prophet's Commission, 257. False 
Prophets, 261. Way of Life, 263. Instruction by Symbols, 265. Pro- 
phetical Writings, 268. Style of Thought and Doctrine, 272. Messianic 
Prophecy, 276. 



432 



INDEX. 



The Captivity, 2#L - 310. The Jews in Babylon, 283. Colony of 
Judaea, 289. Effects of the Captivity, 290-297. Zerubbabel, 298. Ezra 
and Nehemiah, 302. Alexander at Jerusalem, 309. 

The Maccabees, 311-345. Grecian Influences, 315. Jewish Sects, 
316. Antiochus Epiphanes, 318. The Maccabees, — Judas, 322. Jona- 
than, 325. Simon, 326. John Hyrcanus, 327. Asinonaean Kings, 330. 
Jerusalem taken by Pompey, 333. Herod, 335. 

The Alexandrians, 346 - 378. Grecian Philosophy, 347. Epicureans 
and Stoics, 349. Scepticism and Mysticism, 357. The Jews in Egypt, 
361. Septuagint, 363. Therapeutae, 369. Philo, 370. 

The Messiah, 379-426. Results of Herod's Reign, 381. Judasa a 
Roman Province, 383. Pilate, 385. Rabbins and Sanhedrim, 386. Inter- 
pretation of Scripture, 388. Doctrine of the Messiah, 393. Jewish Sects, 
398. The Essenes, 399. John the Baptist, 403. Jesus of Nazareth, 404. 
Expectation of his Second Coming, 408. The Christian Church, 411. 
Herod Agrippa, 412. Jewish Revolts, 414. Siege of Jerusalem, 417. 
Revolt under Hadrian, 423. Modern Jews, 424. 



21,371. 



Aaron, 39, 42, 43, 56, 61, 62. 

Abraham, 6, 7, 10, 

Absalom, 132 - 134. 

Agrippa, King, 331, 415. 

Ahab, 178, 182. 

Ahaz, 188, 191. 

Akibah, R., 423, 425. 

Alexandria, 360. Jews in, 361. In- 
stitute, 364. Schools of, 365, 376. 

Alexandrians, 346-378. 

Allegory, 297, 365, 371. 

Altar, 154, 216. 230. 

Amalek, 6, 23, 48, 65, 87, 122. 

Ammon, 15, 18, 34, 89, 106, 129, 204. 

Amorites, 6, 63. 

Amos, 187, 273. 

Ark of the Covenant, 56, 153, 155. 

Asa, 176, 184. 

Ashera and Astarte, 210. 

Asmonaean Kings, 330. 

Assyrians, 188, 199. 

Atonement, Day of, 240. Jewish 
Doctrine of, 233, 395. 

Azazel, 55, 210, 214, 241. 

Baal, or Bel, 14, 178, 210. 

Babylon, 286. 



Balaam, 64, 372, 388, 406. 

Bar-Cochab, 423. 

Benjamin, 76, 80, 81, 85, 105. 

Bethel, 13, 76, 215. 

Canaan, Conquest of, 63, 67, 73. 

Canaanites, 6-8, 67, 68, 73, 82, 148, 

150. Customs and Superstitions, 

197, 209-217,244, 249. 
Captivity in Babylon, 207, 283. 

Duration, 278, 289. Effects, 290 - 

297. Captivities, 361. 
Chaldaeans, 188. 
Chasidim, 314, 315, 322, 329. 
Cherethites and Pelethites, 92, 123. 
Christian Doctrine, 409. Church, 

411. 
Chronology of Judges, 74 ; of Kings, 

427; of Prophets, 268. 
Circumcision, 59, 70, 228, 320. 
Cyrene, 364. Massacres in, 422. 
Cyrus, 287, 300. 

Damascus, 11, 148, 171, 173, 181. 
Daniel, 288, 321. 
David, 107, 108, 113-144, 278. 
Deborah, 83, 96. Song of, 84. 
Decalogue, 54. 



INDEX. 



433 



Dedication, Feast of, 324. 

Deuteronomy, 200. 

Edom, 23, 26, 34, 68, 128, 204, 214, 
327, 338, 381. 

Egypt, early Civilization, 31. Op- 
pression of Hebrews, 38. Plagues, 
44. Relations with Solomon, 149. 
With Israel, 176, 189. With Ju- 
dah, 192, 203, 204. Influence on 
Hebrew Thought, 199. ( See Alex- 
andria.) Conquest and Rule of 
Palestine, 310-312,316. 

El, 17, 27, 52, 210, 211. 

Elijah, 179, 263. 

Elisha, 180. His political influence, 
181. 

Ephraim, 75, 85, 291. 

Epicurus, 349. 

Essenes, 316, 399-401, 419. 

Ezekiel, 198, 201, 269, 274, 283, 288. 

Ezra, 302 - 304. 

Festivals of Hebrews, 232 ; of Syri- 
ans, 214. 

Felix, Festus, Floras, Roman Gov- 
ernors, 413, 414. 

Future State, Doctrine of, 274. 

Galilee, 188, 396, 404, 416. 

Gibeonites, 110, 137. 

Gilboa, Battle of, 112, 121. 

Gilead, 77, 82, 89, 183, 188 

Greek Empire in the East, 308. In- 
fluence on Jews, 312, 315. Phi- 
losophy, period, 346. 

Habakkuk, 204, 205, 269. 

Health Regulations, 58, 226. 

Hebrews, Race, 9. Migration, 11. 
In Egypt, 38, 53. In the Desert, 
48, 60. In Canaan, 70, 73, 219. 

Hebron, 13, 15. David in, 122. 

Herod the Great, 335-343, 381, 398. 

Herod Agrippa, 331, 412. 

Hezekiah (King), 191-195; (Rob- 
ber), 335. 

Horses in Israel, 69, 164, 219. 
1 9 



Hosea, 187, 265, 268. 

Human Sacrifice, 20, 197, 216, 218, 
238. 

Hycsos, or Shepherd Kings, 32, 68. 

Hyrcanus, 332, 340 ; (John), 327. 

Isaac, 20, 21. 

Isaiah, 191, 194, 196, 273. 

Ishbosheth, 119, 124. 

Ishmael, 19. 

Israel, 24, 211 ; (northern Kingdom), 
168. 

Jacob, 23. His Flight, 24. Return, 
25. Later Life, 27. Oracle of, 78. 

Jannes and Jambres, 64. 

Jason (Joshua), 319. 

Jehovah (the Name), 52, 211, 293. 

Jeroboam, 166, 175, 177. Jeroboam 
II., 187. 

Jerusalem, 125. Siege by Sennache- 
rib, 193 ; by Nebuchadnezzar, 205 ; 
by Pompey, 333; by Titus, 417. 
Destruction of, 418, 424. 

Jesus of Nazareth, 404. Expecta- 
tion of his Second Coming, 408. 

Jews (the Name), 289. 

Joab, 123, 128, 131, 147. 

Job, Book of, 23, 27, 271, 273. 

Joel, 185, 268, 273. 

John the Baptist, 403. 

John Hyrcanus, 327. 

Jonathan, son of Saul, 117, 118. The 
Maccabee, 325. 

Joseph, 28. His Descendants, 75. 

Joseph the Tax-gatherer, 317. 

Josephus, the Historian, 416. 

Joshua, 66; (the Priest), 298; (Ja- 
son), 319. 

Josiah, Reform, 200. Death, 203. 

Jubilee, 51, 236. 

Judasa, 289. Independence, of, 327. 
A Roman Province, 383. 

Judah (Tribe), 76, 79; (Kingdom), 
168, 174. 

Judges, 73 - 112. 

B B 



434 



INDEX. 



Kings of Israel and Judah, 171 - 207. 

Law, the, 208-251. 

Laws of Moses, 50. Decalogue, 54. 

Levi, Tribe, 78, 79, 246. 

Levirate Marriage, 226. 

Levitical Law, early Traces, 98, 126. 
Development, 157, 174, 244-250. 

Logos, Doctrine of, 353, 365, 368, 374. 

Maccabees, 311-345. Family of, 
322, 326. Descendants, 330. 

Malachi (Ezra), 304. 

Manasseh, Tribe, 75, 85. King, 197. 
His Persecutions, 198. Son of 
High-priest, 306. 

Mariamne, wife of Herod, 339 - 341. 

Mattathias, son of Asmonai, 321. 

Megiddo, Battles at, 82, 203. 

Melchizedek, 17, 390. 

Messianic Prophecies, 186, 191, 276. 
Expectations, 344, 393. Doctrine, 
394 - 398, 408. 

Micah, 191, 216, 269, 273. 

Micaiah, 182, 257. 

Midian, 19, 65, 87. 

Miriam, 38, 46, 61. 

Moab, 15, 18, 34, 68, 77, 127, 204. 

Moloch, 163, 213, 218. 

Moriah, 20, 138, 152. 

Moses, 36 - 72, 244, 245. Talmudic 
Legends of, 392. 

Mysticism, 359. 

Mythology, Syrian, 209 - 212. 

Nadab and Abihu, 61. 

Nebuchadnezzar, 204, 285, 302. 

Nehemiah, 305, 306. 

Nineveh, 190, 201. 

Obadiah, 204, 269. 

Palestine, Name, 91. Natural fea- 
tures, 2-4. Condition after the 
Conquest, 82, 219. After the Cap- 
tivity, 298, 314. As a Roman 
Province, 343, 384. 

Passover, 238. 

Patriarchs, 1 - 35. 



Pentecost, 239. 

Persian Religion, 287. 

Pharisees, 316, 329. 

Philistines, 5. Origin, 90. Contests 
with Israel, 92, 121, 127. 

Philo of Alexandria, 370 - 375. 

Phoenicia, 8, 135, 150, 165, 192. 

Pilate, 385. 

Plato, 348. 

Polygamy, 130, 159, 163, 226. 

Pompey, 333. 

Prince of the Captivity, 291. 

Priesthood, 126, 156, 174, 246. Aris- 
tocracy of, 292. 

Prophecy, 95, 102, 177, 186. Messi- 
anic, 276. 

Prophets, 252 - 280. 

Ptolemy, 281, 310, 312, 360. 

Rabbins, 386, 419 

Rehoboam, 167. 

Ritual, 54, 56, 157, 228-234, 293. 

Rome, 318, 325, 330, 332. Influence 
in Syria, 318, 336. Government 
of Judaea, 343, 383, 418. 

Sabbath, 58, 211, 234, 294; (Year), 
235, 243, 294. 

Sacrifice, 54, 215, 229. The Table, 
215, 229. Altar, 216, 239. Burnt- 
offering, 231. Peace-ofFering, 232. 
Sin and Trespass offering, 233. 
Human Sacrifice, 20, 197,216, 218, 
238. 

Sadducees, 315, 328. 

Samaria, 176, 181. Fall of, 190, 328. 

Samaritans, 190, 291, 299, 307. 

Samson, 81, 92 - 94. 

Samuel, 99-112, 254. Difference 
with Saul, 109. 

Sanhedrim, 335, 342, 387. 

Satan, 137, 297. 

Saturn, 210, 211. 

Saul, 105 - 112 ; and David, 108, 117. 

Scepticism, 157, 357. 

Scythians, 202. 



INDEX. 



435 



Sects, 294, 316, 398. 

Sennacherib, 192 - 194. 

Septuagint, 210, 214, 363. 

Seventy Weeks, 278. Years, 278, 
289/ 

Shem, 9. Genealogy of, 10. 

Shiloh, 70, 75, 79, 82, 98, 173, 388. 

Simon the Just, 313. 

Simon the Maccabee, 326. 

Sinai, 39, 49, 392. 

Slavery, 58, 148, 225, 369. 

Sodom, Description by Strabo, 4. 
Destruction, 18. 

Solomon, 145-170. 

Stoic Doctrine, 353. 

Symbols, Language of, 265, 274. 

Synagogue, 306, 313. At Alexan- 
dria, 364. 

Tabernacles, Feast of, 242. Descrip- 
tion by Plutarch, 242. 

Talmud, 390. 



Temple at Jerusalem, Solomon's, 

151 - 156. Zerubbabel's, 299, 301. 

Herod's, 337, 381. 
Ten Tribes, Revolt, 167, 172, 249; 

Dispersion, 190, 250, 291. 
Teraphim, 25, 27, 215. 
Therapeutse, 369. 
Tophet, 197, 218. 
Tribes, 57, 74, 224. Settlement of, 

75-78. 
Tyre, 100, 192. 

Wandering, Israelite, 48, 60, 219. 
Wisdom of Solomon, 367. 
Women in Israel, 96. 
Zealots, 383, 398, 415, 418, 420. 
Zebulon, 77, 79, 85, 188. 
Zedekiah, King, 204 - 206. Prophet, 

261, 265. 
Zeno, 352, 357. 
Zephaniah, 202, 269. 
Zerubbabel, 298. 



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low price of twenty-Jive cents each, to meet the demand for good but cheap 
Juveniles. 

•* They possess the rare merit of being written in a style easily comprehended 
by those for whom they are designed, and on themes that combine interest with 
instruction." — Burlington Sentinel. 

H The whole series are of a character unexceptionable in every point, and ad- 
mirably suited for the home or the Sunday School." — Syracuse Courier. 



FRED. FREELAND; or, The Chain of Circumstances. 

75 cents. 

" We cordially recommend this finely written and instructive tale." — Philadelphia 
National Argus. 

" Exceedingly interesting and instructive." — Dover Gazette. 

" Cannot fail to interest and improve." — Burlington Sentinel. 

" Attractive in style, and unexceptionable in matter." — Woodstock Spirit of the 
Jige. 

" Well conceived and happily executed." — Boston Christian Era. 

" An excellent volume." — Greenfield Gazette. 

" We can, with much pleasure, commend it." — Fall River News. 

" A good book." — Haverhill Banner. 

M Inculcating an excellent moral " — Peterson's Magazine. 

" Quite spirited, and will be read with interest." — Northampt on Gazette. 

" The general tendency of the book is wholesome." — Salem Observer. 



8 Walker j Wise, 8? Go's Recent Publications. 



ALL THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY. 

NOISY HERBERT, and other Stories for Small Children, 

50 cents. 

The R. B. R.'s : My Little Neighbors. 50 cents 

BESSIE GRANT'S TREASURE. 50 cents. 

A SUMMER WITH THE LITTLE GRAYS. 50 cents. 

FAITH AND PATIENCE. A Story — and something more — for Boys. 
75 cts. 

MODESTY AND MERIT. 75 cents. 

All fully and finely illustrated, and tastefully bound. 

" These books may be unreservedly recommended." — Daily Advertiser. 
11 We cordially recommend them." — Sunday School Gazette. 

"This charming Library, for variety and adaptation to meet the wants of the 
various ages of a family group, is certainly unsurpassed." — Christian Register. 

" For lessons of truth, honesty, generosity, courtesy, and all of manliness (not 
more) that should be found in the ingenuous boy, — and these lessons, not in a 
didactic form, but insinuated in the natural course of a graceful and charming 
story, — we have seldom seen ' Faith and Patience ' paralleled, never surpassed, in 
juvenile literature. Its morality is that of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is redo- 
lent throughout of the spirit of the Divine Teacher." — North American Review. 



ALICE'S DREAM. A Tale of Christmas-Time. Two exqui- 
site Illustrations by Billings. 50 cents. 

A charmingly written Christmas Story, worthy the perusal of old and 
young. 

" A tone of practical common sense and piety pervades 'Alice's Dream,' and 
we strongly recommend it." — Saturday Express. 

" The story is pleasantly told, and conveys a fitting Christmas lesson of true, 
unselfish charity." — Boston Journal. 

" Calculated to exercise a good and refining influence upon the hearts of the 
young." — Essex County Democrat. 



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